Fire and Darkness
by Icy Mike Molson
Summary: A sudden, mysterious fire breaks out in the northwestern reaches of the Forest of Argent, threatening the elves and especially treants in the area. But when the elves set out to stop the fire, they find far more than even they suspected...
1. Foreword

** Author's Note**

Wizards of the Coast owns the general concept of Dungeons and Dragons, from which this story was devised. However, _The New World_ and its principal kingdoms of Mardan, Urhal, Utrecht, Tourant, the Island Duchies, Arnheim, Trzebin, and Argent Forest, are mine. Likewise, the characters, while ostensibly created through the use of the Dungeons and Dragons character generation rules, are also mine. While I am not completely averse to someone requesting to use _The New World_ as a backdrop for a campaign or story, ask my permission first. Chances are you'll have my blessing; after all, I'd be interested to see what someone can do with the political and social backdrop I've created. I won't tell you anything about The New World; that's for you to find out through the stories. However, since it may be confusing to some that see the weather getting colder as one moves south, I will mention that _The New World_ is set in the southern hemisphere.

_Fire and Darkness_ is the third story to take place in _The New World_ campaign setting. Although some of the events in _Hounds of Winter_ and _Orcish Vise_ may have a very indirect impact on the plot line, _Fire and Darkness_ easily works as a stand alone story and it is by no means necessary to read the other works. All three stories are a continuing attempt to write a story for each of the _One Hundred Adventure Ideas_ found on page 138 of the _Dungeon Master's Guide_, no easy feat for any author.

One of main character of _Fire and Darkness_, Lady Valtaya, is heavily based on the character concept and description given me by the author Lady Valtaya on this site, although I did have to make a few alterations to fit her completely into the story (basically, I couldn't bring myself to write an elf with purple eyes, even if she is a surface elf. Oh, and she got a little taller, too. Nothing major.). As such, the character of Lady Valtaya belongs to, well, Lady Valtaya. Finally, this story is dedicated to Lady Valtaya, who, besides being a great inspiration to this story(hey, give me a character and my imagination does the rest), has also been my biggest and most supportive fan for my works in both this fandom and Diablo.


	2. Fire of Unknown Origin

**          I**

            Spring had come relatively early, and heavy rains in the early spring had brought an amazing abundance of new growth to the Forest of Argent.  Although Argent was still wild and pristine in comparison to its neighbors, Mardan to the north and Tourant to the south, the wet, warm spring had brought a vigor to the forest that instilled a sense of awe even into Argent's residents.  Enormous oaks sprouted verdant, broad canopies, while saplings sprang up seemingly overnight wherever the sun shone down to the forest floor.  Thick, almost impassable undergrowth covered the ground beneath the leafy ceiling, providing an abundance of food for the animal inhabitants of the forest.  The River Embléz, which flowed through the very heart of Argent, ran deeper and faster than it had in years, owing to the heavy thaws in the mountains, and even the smallest creek in Argent seemed to be deeper and wider than it ever had been.  The beautiful spring seemed to promise a summer of growth that would far outshine any season in recent history.

            Which made the current situation even more bizarre.

            "A fire?"

            "A fire," Leith confirmed, sniffing at the wind blowing in from the southwest.  The elf stopped for a moment, considering the overgrown path before him in the dim, half light of dusk. "An unfortunate wind, as well.  It will carry the smoke and fire towards the treant groves."

            "A fire in these conditions will never last long," Custennin observed, making his way slowly along behind Leith.  Leith turned back to his companion, considering the slightly shorter elf for a long moment.

            "Where did the fire even come from?" Leith asked, keeping his voice low as he turned back to the forest ahead of him.  The western reaches of Argent were scarcely populated even by elven standards, forming a huge, unspoiled forest where only a few druids and rangers truly knew the lay of the land.  While the powerful goblin nation of Trzebin dominated the mountains on the northwestern fringes of the sprawling forest and had openly declared themselves enemies of the elven nation of Argent, it was rare to actually see a goblin anywhere inside Argent's rather blurred borders.  Custennin considered his partner's question for a long moment, brushing a few strands of silvery blond hair from his face as he thought.

            "You think it's unnatural?" Custennin guessed, though it seemed as though the elf had already had suspicions of his own.  Leith nodded as he tucked a strand of his own platinum hair behind his pointed ear.

            "Goblins, maybe," Leith said. "Though when we do see them, they are not as stealthy."

            "We are still a mile from the fire or more," Custennin decided, considering the faint smoke on the air himself. "We will probably see them once we track the smoke to its source.  Then we track them and pick them off, one or two at a time.  Without goblins to keep the fire going, it will die out."

            "Why are goblins starting fires now?" Leith asked.

            "Because they hate us and want to destroy the forest," Custennin pointed out. "If Krysztof cannot have our land, he will make certain that no one can have it."

            "Be careful, Custennin," Leith said, picking his route through the underbrush and stealing forward. "I have a bad feeling about this."

            "I never take Krysztof's goblins lightly," Custennin reassured his partner.  Leith nodded, and the two elves disappeared into the forest.

            Leith picked his way masterfully through the dense growth, barely moving a twig and making no sound as he crept through the forest.  Many times in the past he and Custennin had slipped through the forest unheard and unseen, able to surprise even the wariest hobgoblin warrior or the most vigilant human explorer.  While most elves had little knowledge of the northwestern reaches of Argent, preferring instead to let the treants govern themselves, Leith had both gained the friendships of the sentient trees and learned the magnificent forest's secrets.  His extensive knowledge was exactly what made him so certain that the fire was unnatural; the wet spring and the location of the fire, along a large network of creeks and streams, seemed to be naturally impossible.  As Leith closed the last of the distance to the fire, he grew more and more on edge, until he could finally see the conflagration in full.

            The fire had burned several acres of land, but as Leith and Custennin found it the inferno seemed to be in the process of dying.  Trapped between two streams joined together in a roughly Y shaped course, the flames were already growing dimmer, and few embers jumped across the streams to light new fires outside of the water's natural break.  The last light of dusk had already faded to nothing, but the flames dancing along the streams provided more than enough illumination to the site.  Leith paused for a moment as he considered the flames, then turned back to his partner.

            "It seems the water will stop the fire here," he said quietly, wiping at his emerald green eyes as the smoke shifted towards the two rangers.  Custennin nodded, squinting his own eyes in an attempt to keep the smoke from blinding him. "But to be sure, we-"

            Custennin held up a hand suddenly for silence.  Leith dropped low to the ground, nocking an arrow quickly as he searched for whatever it was that had set his partner on edge.  For what seemed like eternity the two remained silent and hidden, waiting for anything to reveal itself in the light of the fires.

            Finally, Leith was certain that he had seen something.  Whatever it was, it could be no elf; it was far too large, and seemed almost misshapen against the lurid background of the fires.  No bear or deer made such a revolting silhouette against flames, and slowly the elven ranger drew his arrow back to his cheek, ready to strike down the abomination with a single, well placed shot.

            He never had the chance to let his shot fly.

            In an instant Leith was engulfed in flames.  A towering wall of fire ripped through the forest underbrush, catching the two rangers in its deadly path, even as a pillar of sinister orange and red flames erupted under each elf.  Leith was barely able to scream in pain before the elf, as well as his partner, had been burned to cinders in the sudden inferno.  Seemingly oblivious to the danger the elf had posed, the abomination shuffled out of the firelight, disappearing into darkness as a new fire began its slow, relentless march to the east.


	3. Best Guesses

** II**

For those that could find it, the elven capitol of Oakenbough was indeed a wonder to behold. Built around and even within the branches of enormous oaks, the city was barely noticeable even to travelers within a hundred yards of its borders. Winding staircases around the trunks of the magnificent oaks brought one up into the very canopies of the great trees, and walkways led along the largest boughs to the homes of the elven nobles and the elegant King's Manse, a beautiful palace that had been literally grown out of the center of the largest oak in the elven capitol. On the ground or in the branches, the homes of the elves were built with great care to blend into the natural scenery, often appearing to an untrained human's eyes as little more than thick layers of leaves, heavy underbrush, or oddly jumbled stones.

To Valtaya, the masterfully hidden homes still seemed to stand out against the wooded backdrop.

Although the city of Oakenbough was a work of art and the epitome of living together with nature, Valtaya still longed for the western, untamed reaches of Argent. Although she had not seen the distant wilds for nearly a half century, the young druid's memories of the pristine, unspoiled wilderness constantly drove her to seek a way back to those lands. Even as she tended to the mystical groves that encompassed Oakenbough, among oaks that grew with supernatural vigor and hidden gardens of beautiful flowers and charming stands of white birch lining cheerfully bubbling streams, she continued to dream of the fast running brooks and trackless forests where she and her mother had once ventured. But after her moth's death nearly fifty years ago, she had been sent back from the wilds to live with her father, Lord Caradoc, as Lady Valtaya of the Elven Court of Oakenbough. The title and the position hardly seemed to fit a young druid. At least she had been given over to Druce, Caretaker of the Grove and one of the most powerful druids in Oakenbough, to continue her studies and look after the natural splendor of Argent's capitol. The druids of Argent were revered by their elven kinsmen, but Lord Caradoc had only grudgingly allowed his daughter to continue her studies with Druce, hoping instead that she would turn to the more arcane study of wizard's magic and marry into the elven nobility.

A whisper of footsteps on the lush grass behind her alerted Valtaya to the presence of another person in the small orchard where she had come to tend the flowering apple trees. Valtaya smiled as she turned around, already knowing who to expect behind her. Although he could move as silently as the stealthiest cat, Druce always allowed his apprentice the opportunity to hear him coming.

"Your ears are as good as ever," the old elf said, smiling as he joined his student in the orchard. Although he just into his third century, Druce was in impeccably good health, and his golden blond hair had not yet begun to show even the faintest streaks of gray. Many elves a full century younger than him could only envy the druid his fitness and vitality, reflected in his sparkling blue eyes. Although Druce was not exactly tall for an elf, standing just under five and a half feet tall, he practically towered over his far shorter apprentice, who did not quite reach five feet in height. For her part, Valtaya smiled at the routine compliment and bowed to her mentor.

"And you are as generous as ever for letting me hear you coming," the younger druid countered lightly, her smile growing wider. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Valtaya," Druce said with a smile. "I see you have taken excellent care of the orchards today, and it is not even noon."

"Anything to escape court life," Valtaya said, following Druce as the older druid started through the trees. Druce chuckled at the comment.

"Druids too have a place in the court," he observed, examining a particularly large flower on one of the apple trees. "We, after all, are the caretakers of the groves, and the ones that keep Argent from dying."

"I know, but I just can't stand the talking, and the posturing, and everything else that goes on in court," Valtaya complained, keeping one step beyond Druce as he started again through the orchard. "I just don't feel like I fit there."

"Yes, but you strike quite a lovely figure when you do dress for the occasion," Druce said, turning back to admire the young woman for a moment. Like most elves, she was very fair skinned, with deep blue, almost sapphire colored eyes and long, silvery blond hair that dropped almost to her waist. "I dare say a dress makes you look better than the simple robes of a druid. And silver hair is the mark of nobility."

"That was my father's fault," Valtaya said glumly, brushing her hair unconsciously back past her pointed ears. Druce laughed.

"Your father cares for you very much," the older druid remarked. "But you have to remember, he spent many years as emissary to the elves of Utrecht, and his time there has accustomed him more to the ways of Utrecht than Argent. They place far more value on arcane magic and far less on the Mother's ways than we do. They actually enjoy the human cities."

"I hope never to see a human city," Valtaya said, turning her nose up at the thought of elves taking after humans. "From what my father has said, they must be terribly crowded and filthy places."

"And without a druid in court, we may be living in them in a matter of only a century or two," Druce observed. Valtaya shook her head at the comment.

"And lose Argent? I don't think any sane elf in Argent would do such a thing," the young druid decided. Druce simply smirked, an expression that his student had seen many times when he decided to simply humor her. "It may have happened to Utrecht, but they are forced to live with humans all the time," Valtaya reasoned. "I've never even seen a human."

"They are an interesting breed," Druce said. "Perhaps some day we will travel east, to Woodline, and I shall introduce you to some of the Tourant."

"Perhaps," Valtaya said dubiously. While it would be interesting to meet the humans of their nation's southern neighbor, her curiosity was tempered by all she had heard in court over forty years. The humans of Tourant, and even of Mardan, the largely human kingdom to the north, were both bent on logging every last tree they could find to sail on distant oceans, build their cities, or farm enormous crops. Valtaya opened her mouth to speak, ready to voice her concerns, but before she could say anything the two were interrupted by a young elf that practically stumbled into the orchard, wearing the sash of a courier of the court.

"Caretaker Druce!" the messenger shouted. "There is an urgent request for you at the King's Manse, immediately!"

"Well, let us not keep the king waiting," Druce said, seemingly unconcerned with the younger elf's anxious demeanor. Valtaya hesitated for a moment, wondering what could have put the elves of the court on edge, until Druce turned back to her. "Are you coming, Lady Valtaya?"

* * *

"Of… of course," Valtaya agreed, hastily giving her interest in the mysterious subject precedence over her dislike of the elven court. Together, the two druids followed the messenger out of the orchard.

"A fire?"

"A fire," King Setanta repeated, standing over a large table in the center of his planning hall. While much of court life was conducted in the vast Great Hall where the king's throne was placed, Valtaya far preferred the sunny, almost cozy confines of the planning hall to the ballroom where Setanta entertained visiting dignitaries or convened his entire court. The elegant oaken table and chairs had been painstakingly carved with the swirls and pictograms of the forebears of the elven race, placed in the center of a room carved from the very oak that held the King's Manse. Even King Setanta himself was dressed down, abandoning his typical royal garments for a loose fitting, comfortable tunic and britches. Only Set anta's crown, a beautiful gold circlet in the shape of a wreath of leaves with emerald and jade insets, and his almost metallic silver hair revealed his noble station. The king pointed to a beautifully drawn and accurate map of the Forest of Argent, indicating the northwestern edge of the nation. "Some of our scouts have reported that it has burned for several days, and is moving slowly towards the treants that inhabit the wildest reaches of the forest."

"Some of our scouts?" Druce echoed, growing curious. "I would think that a fire of this size would have been noticed by all of them."

"Some of our scouts have not returned," Lord Caradoc, Valtaya's father, said as he too studied the map. Lord Caradoc was a century younger than Druce, his hair a royal silver and impeccably groomed even for a simple debate of strategy. Of all the elves in the room, Caradoc had gone to the greatest lengths to impress with his appearance, wearing the heavily embroidered, silver and green robes of a Court Wizard. His sapphire blue eyes, another common trait he shared with his daughter, barely turned to Valtaya, and the young druid could not tell if he was happy to see her in the chamber or if he was upset that she was dressed in the flat brown and green robes that were so common to druids. "Six in all have not been seen since the fire started. Two more were found dead, their mutilated bodies hung from the trees."

"Sounds like orcish work," Teirtu, the acting general of Argent's army, commented. Teirtu was possibly as old as Druce, but unlike the druid Teirtu's age was beginning to show. While powerfully built and deceptively fast, even for an elf, in combat, Teirtu's once jet black hair was beginning to show streaks of gray and the faintest lines of age began to show on his face. The general also was one of very few elves that Valtaya had ever seen wear metal armor, and even now he wore his beautifully cleaned and masterfully engraved breastplate as he considered tactics far from the lines of any potential battle. "While our winter was not trying, the south witnessed a very harsh series of blizzards, and the orcs may have come north to raid our food supplies."

"But why burn the forest, then?" Setanta inquired. Teirtu shrugged.

"They are orcs," the general said. "At any rate, Krysztof's hobgoblins do not display bodies in such a manner. They are professional warriors, and that is the only nice thing I can say about them."

"Orcs," Druce repeated, considering the possibility of barbarian tribes being behind the fires. Valtaya turned to her teacher, but she only dimly registered the concentration on Druce's face as she heard the word. Orcs, or at least half-orcs, had been behind her mother's death. She had even been killed in the same area where the fire now raged. If those orcs had come back to find something that had mother had hidden or protected so long ago…

"I would say it is goblins," Lord Caradoc decided, "pretending to be orcs. They are trying to disguise their presence until we send more elves out to meet them. I worry that this may be the first wave of an invasion."

"I would be inclined to agree, except for two things," Kling Setanta said. "One, the winter to the south was harsh, and the humans of Tourant and the barbarians seem to think it was an elf that made it harsh. Naturally, the orcs would want revenge for making things so difficult for them. And secondly, Krysztof must still deal with the threat Arnheim poses to them. To invade us now would be suicide for Trzebin."

"Guesses alone will not be enough to discover the reason for these fires, nor will it stop them," Druce put in. Valtaya glanced to the king as he turned from his advisors to the druid, realizing abruptly that Setanta had been waiting for Druce to make such a statement. "We will have to investigate firsthand to discover the culprit."

"We will need a druid, one who can summon the storms that will be necessary to douse the flames," King Setanta surmised. Druce nodded with a smile. Valtaya looked down to the floor, trying to hide the disgust on her face. Setanta was a good king and very fair, but the court method of asking-without-asking was one of the very things Valtaya disliked about the court. And she was always surprised at how well Druce seemed to know the rules of court, despite the fact that he spent almost all of his time either teaching Valtaya or caring for the trees of Oakenbough.

"I believe I can summon the storms necessary," Druce said with a nod. "I will travel to the fires myself and deal with it personally. Of course, however, I will need help on such an endeavor."

"And help you shall have," Teirtu said. "Three of my rangers have already volunteered to lead you to the fire and protect you should any danger arise from goblins or orcs."

"I also have help to give," Caradoc said. "One of my wizards has also volunteered to join your party. He may be of some help with the flames, but he is a capable battle mage as well and devoted to protecting Argent."

"And I'll go too," Valtaya said abruptly, joining the conversation for the first time. "The land will certainly need healing once the fires have died, and if there is combat these brave elves will certainly need someone skilled in healing."

"Yes, they will," Teirtu agreed reluctantly, glancing over to Valtaya's father. Caradoc seemed almost furious with his daughter's brash statement, but held his anger in check in the company of the king and the Caretaker. Setanta, however, fully realized the tension between father and daughter as he turned to Druce.

"She may be a bit young," the king said cautiously. Druce smiled slightly.

"She is very talented, especially in the healing arts," the Caretaker countered. "And she is right. Even if we encounter no resistance, the forest, and perhaps even the treants themselves, will need our help to heal. With due respect to Lord Caradoc, I need his daughter at my side."

Valtaya tried to hold in a broad grin as Druce spoke, but only partially succeeded. Her teacher had finally turned the court around on her father, and now all eyes turned to Caradoc to judge his response. The Lord obviously did not wish to be seen as one who would put something before the well being of his nation, but as a father he was ready to throttle Druce for the statement and then lock his daughter in the dungeon to keep her from venturing into such blatant danger. King Setanta said nothing and was almost unreadable as he waited for Caradoc's answer, while Teirtu seemed to be expecting a vicious tirade from the king's mystical advisor. Finally, with a last, furious glance to Valtaya for her part in his entrapment, Lord Caradoc nodded.

"Then by your side she shall be," the wizard said through gritted teeth.

* * *

"Thank you, Druce! Thank you thank you thank you!"

"I think you took my comments in the planning room the wrong way," Druce said, stepping back from Valtaya after she finally released him from a tight embrace. Valtaya could not stop grinning as she walked with her teacher along the walkways that led through the canopies from the King's Manse.

"It doesn't matter," Valtaya said happily, practically dancing along the walkway in front of her mentor. "I'm finally going back to the west! I'm finally released from taking care of apple orchards and waiting for the trees to grow! I'm finally going back to the real forest!"

"Then perhaps you should stay here," Druce said, a painfully serious tone to his voice. Valtaya's joy died immediately a the prospect of being left behind by her own teacher.

"But… why?" the young druid finally blurted out, stunned by Druce's sudden change of attitude.

"I am almost certain that this journey will not be easy," the older druid said sternly. "The place we are going is not the place you recall when you daydream in the orchards. You have never seen what can happen to a forest in the wake of devastating fires. I have, and it will break your heart. In addition, I fear that we will see combat, combat the likes of which you cannot understand without seeing. You must put all your thoughts of playing in the forest like you did when you were a child out of your mind. This is a terrible event unfolding before us, and you must be prepared for whatever dangers lie ahead. I accepted your decision to volunteer because I will need your help, but if you do not comprehend what we are about to face, you will be of no use to me."

"I… I'm prepared," Valtaya reassured her mentor solemnly. For the moment her happiness had been completely destroyed by Druce's words, but already the thoughts of twisted, blackened landscapes were being chased out of her mind again by the memories of lush green forests and clear, sparkling streams. "I… well, I just thought it would be nice to get away from Oakenbough, even for a little while. No more fancy dresses, no more tending orchards, and no more enduring my father's ultimate goal of finding me a suitable husband."

"By the time we are done, you may not find those things quite so disagreeable," Druce said with a bit of a smile. "Now, go prepare yourself for the journey. And sleep well tonight, for it may be the last good night of sleep that you have for some time."

Valtaya nodded and hurried off, trying to keep her teacher's words in mind as she climbed through the trees to her father's home to prepare for her return to the western forests. But by the time she had pushed through the door of the beautiful, tiny mansion set along the outer branches of the oaks, she had forgotten all about the possible dangers of the road ahead, and could only see herself happily at home amid the verdant forests.


	4. A Walk in the Woods

** III**

The trip was tiring after spending so long in the confines of Oakenbough, but she would have it no other way.

Their journey had started very early in the morning, but Valtaya was used to seeing the sun rise. Together with the other members of Druce's small team, the druid had met beneath the leaves of the King's Manse, dressed like the others in soft, tough hunting leathers under a light, durable cloak enchanted to help hide her from sight. While most of the others carried an assortment of weapons, and even Druce carried a staff for walking and a heavy sickle and shield for fighting, Valtaya carried only her staff, a stout oaken cudgel roughly her height, but she was certain that her spells would be of far more use than any weapon. Valtaya's equipment consisted largely of bandages and healing salve or an assortment of acorns and seeds to help revive the burned forest. Lord Caradoc himself had seen the group off with a teleportation spell, though he made little attempt to hide his displeasure at sending Valtaya along with the others, and within moments they had gone from Oakenbough to a tiny village named Ceallai, over a hundred miles to the northwest. From there they had set out through the dense forest, and with each passing mile the forest grew wilder. Where the elves of Argent had made the eastern reaches of their nation slightly more passable, creating the occasional road and several trails, western Argent saw no sign of elven life. The few elven bands that did travel the area were nomadic and even less obtrusive than their cousins in Oakenbough, and Valtaya had difficulty picking up the signs of their presence as they journeyed back to the place that she had once called home with her mother.

The other members of her band were no strangers to the wilds, either. Although Druce was the appointed leader of the group, Fife, a tough looking, soft spoken ranger with a thick braid of long black hair and piercing, emerald green eyes, seemed to take charge once they had left Ceallai. Dressed in well worn leather and carrying a magnificent ash long bow, he moved silently through the forest and at times seemed to disappear even from Valtaya's sight as he led the others northwest. Although Valtaya thought Druce might take offense to Fife's assumption of leadership, somehow the two had seemed to work out the matter of command without a single word spoken to each other about the matter.

The other two rangers were apparently Fife's subordinates or close friends. The more striking of the two was Keridwyn, a young woman with flowing, silvery blond hair and almond colored eyes. Only slightly shorter than Druce and the comparably sized Fife, Keridwyn was tall for an elven woman, but still a strikingly attractive elf in her own right and almost as stealthy as Fife. Dolan, the other ranger, was the youngest of the three, with a charming smile and the same jet colored hair and green eyes that Fife displayed. Although they shared a resemblance, Dolan laughingly dismissed Valtaya's inquiry of whether they were brothers.

Lord Caradoc's protégé, Hefydd, rounded out the group. Although he was more urbane than his companions, Hefydd was still as capable in woodlore as any elf, and what knowledge he lacked the rest of his group provided. Hefydd was the quietest of the group, keeping more to himself or studying his arcane tomes when they stopped to rest. Although Hefydd was polite and even a bit engaging when he did enter into the conversations, he seemed far more content to read than to socialize. His slight frame and build, standing only a hair over the petite Valtaya, bore testimony to a life of reading and researching rather than enjoying the wilds of Argent. The thought of a life cooped up inside libraries and laboratories made Valtaya silently thank the Mother for providing her with an opportunity to become a druid.

For three days Fife led the group steadily northwest, and for those days it seemed to be far less a dangerous mission than a tour of the northwestern reaches. On the second day they had even met a small band of nomadic elves, but they knew very little about the fires, much less anything sinister in nature connected to them. Even with Hefydd's inexperience slowing them, the six investigators made remarkable progress through the forest, easily leaving Ceallai behind and rapidly covering the distance between them and the fire. Valtaya took those two days to take in the scenery that she had left behind a half century ago, relishing every breath of the fresh air and every sip of crystal clear waters from streams that were directly fed by the Khairathi Mountains rising up in the distant west. For two days, Valtaya easily forgot the mission ahead of her, and simply enjoyed being back in the northwest.

On their third night, however, she discovered that the others, most notably Druce and Fife, had not forgotten their purpose.

The sun had been down for several hours, but the elves had only just finished their journey for the day. Making camp consisted of little more than picking out several sturdy, large branches and crooks in the largest oaks of the area, and within minutes Keridwyn, Hefydd, and Dolan had gone into their trance. With only a few hours of rest necessary for them, Valtaya was confident that they would be on the move again before dawn, just as they had done the previous mornings. But as Valtaya nestled into the upper branches of her resting place, she looked down to see Fife and Druce once more on the ground. While he did not have an arrow nocked, Fife held the arrow loosely in his hand as he considered something in the darkness. Elven vision, so keen even in the dark, could easily pick out foes in the dead of night, many times before the elves' enemies were even aware of their presence. Carefully Valtaya slipped back down through the tree, careful not to make any noise. A sudden knot formed in her stomach as Valtaya wondered if Fife had spotted a band of marauding goblins, or if perhaps the orcs that Teirtu suspected had started the fire were even now creeping up on them. Quickly the forest that she loved so much became more intimidating, and suddenly Valtaya wished she had something more than just her staff to protect herself. After a quick, nervous scan of the trees around her, Valtaya turned back to the two elves on the ground, ready to ask if she should awake the other half the group before whatever it was that Fife had seen decided to attack.

She had only just opened her mouth to speak when Fife shrugged and tucked his arrow back into his quiver. Druce said something inaudible to the ranger, but the druid seemed largely unconcerned with whatever had caught the ranger's attention. Finally, Fife and Druce started back to the tree, ready to rest for the night. Valtaya turned to climb back up, only to find Keridwyn down next to her.

"Did they see something?" the druid asked, glancing back down to the two group leaders.

"They aren't sure," Keridwyn answered, shrugging. "I'm surprised you didn't notice it. For almost two days the rest of us have been a bit more on edge. Well, except for Hefydd, of course."

"Two days?" Valtaya answered, shocked by the reply. Keridwyn nodded.

"I guess living in Oakenbough has dulled your senses a little," the ranger teased, making light of the situation. Valtaya forced out a smile of her own, but the druid suddenly felt very nervous. The rest of the group had picked up on a feeling of imminent danger, but if she had been in the wilds alone she never would have known there was something lurking through the darkness until it was too late. Keridwyn seemed to notice her apprehension, and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, milady," the ranger said. "Honestly, if I didn't know Fife so well I wouldn't have known either."

"Well, what do they think it is?" Valtaya asked. Keridwyn shrugged again, but this time there was a faint note of concern to the ranger's movements and voice.

"They don't know, but we'll find it soon enough," Keridwyn assured her. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we should be close to the fire."

"All right," Valtaya said. "Good night."

"Good night," Keridwyn said, pulling her cloak around herself again and drifting back into her trance. Valtaya made her way back up to the top of the oak, but as she drifted off into her trance she could entirely force the images of a demonic group of orcs lurking in the forest from her mind.

* * *

"Are you feeling well?"

"I'm fine, perfectly fine," Valtaya replied quickly, replacing her blanket in her pack and finishing her light breakfast. Although the sun would not be up for another hour, the sky had already turned a pastel blue, and enough light had crept over the eastern horizon to see the forest clearly. No orcs had visited during the night and nothing had attacked the band, but now Valtaya was aware of the faint note of concern from Druce and the others. Fife seemed to constantly watch the trees around them, while Keridwyn and Dolan always kept one hand near their quivers. Even Hefydd was starting to pick up on his companions' edgy behavior, and now kept one hand on the tip of the wand tucked into his belt. For his part, Druce smiled faintly at the newly anxious Valtaya as he finished the last bit of his honey bread.

"I warned you before we started," the druid said, though he was not admonishing his student. Then he patted her on the shoulder. "But do not worry yourself to death," he continued. "You are with good people. Fife is as good a ranger as I have seen, and the others are able to take care of themselves as well. Should it come to battle, simply remember what you have learned about fighting and healing. Fight when you must, and heal when you can."

"I will," Valtaya promised. Druce nodded with a smile.

"I know you will," he agreed. "Are you ready for another day of walking?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Valtaya said, forcing some good humor into her voice.

"Excellent," Druce said. He turned to Fife. "We're ready when you are."

"Good," Fife said, shouldering his bow and turning northeast. "Keridwyn, watch our backs."

"Already on it," Keridwyn said, moving to the rear of the small group.

"Dolan, watch our flanks," Fife instructed the other ranger.

"Consider them watched," Dolan said with a bit of a smirk. With a final inspection of his fellow elves, Fife nodded and started again through the forest.

The morning came and went without any incident, but now Valtaya watched the trees for signs of an enemy rather than for the beauty of the surroundings. The group moved swiftly and silently, again covering ground with speed that only elves could muster, until by midday a shift in the wind brought them a faint odor of woodsmoke. Fife brought the group to a halt as he caught the scent, kneeling at the group's lead and peering into the thick underbrush. Finally, the ranger dropped back along the line slightly to Druce.

"We're close now," Fife said. Druce nodded, his eyes on the forest ahead of them. "How close do you want to be before calling in a storm?"

"I want to see the fire itself first," Druce said. "If it is already dying down, as it should be with how verdant the plants are here, we may not need a storm. And I would rather not announce our presence until we know who or what has caused this fire."

"Fair enough," Fife said with a nod. "I'll angle us more to the west. If orcs or goblins are causing the fire, they're bound to be in its wake."

"A good plan," Druce said. Fife nodded once more, then got the group moving again. Valtaya moved up next to Druce as the older druid leaned on his staff.

"How much longer?" the younger druid asked. Druce simply shrugged.

"It could be another hour," her teacher said. "It could be the rest of the day, or maybe even tomorrow. It depends on how quickly we travel, and how quickly and in what direction the fire spreads."

"And your storms will be able to stop it, right?" Valtaya asked, watching Fife disappear ahead of them.

"I certainly hope so," Druce replied, a touch of humor to his voice. "Otherwise, King Setanta might not let me be Caretaker any more."

"He'd be a fool to get rid of you," Valtaya said, trying to take the joke for what it was.

"Come now, let's be moving," Druce said. "Fife won't like it if we're just standing around here the rest of the day."

Valtaya fell into place behind her mentor, and again the six elves moved through the undergrowth. The forest remained unbroken and pristine, with the sole exception of the smoke, for the rest of the day, until finally, as the sun dropped below the Khairathi peaks, the odor of smoke began to intensify. A pall, faintly visible but present nonetheless, began to shroud the trees around them, thickening as they continued west. At last, with darkness approaching and the smoke thickening enough to reduce their visibility to a matter of yards, Fife called the group to a halt again. Against the darkness, Valtaya could see a dull, angry orange glow penetrating the veil of smoke. Fife beckoned Druce to the front of the group, and Valtaya unconsciously fell into step behind her mentor. As the two of them reached the ranger, Fife tipped his bow to a heartrending view only a hundred yards ahead of him.

"We're here," the ranger said simply.


	5. Fire and Darkness

** IV**

"Mother's grace," Valtaya whispered, her eyes almost welling with tears as she looked upon the scene. Not even her worst nightmares could have presented her with such an awful vista. Several yards ahead, through a screen of partially scorched brush that formed the edge of the fire, nothing remained of the forest she had once known save blackened, skeletal trees and ashes. Several trees and clumps of underbrush still smoldered or burned outright, creating ghastly candles in a sea of black. Embers still swirled on the winds the fires created, while a thick miasma of smoke hung in the air. What remained of several creeks were barely distinguishable from the charred, cinder covered ground and the charred trees, as ash had choked what remained of the creeks after the fire had evaporated most of the water. Even animals had been overtaken and incinerated by the inferno; on the edge of her sight Valtaya was certain that she could see the smoking remains of what had to have been a bear. In the darkness of late evening, the only illumination was supplied by the fires eating through the forest just to their northeast, giving the terrain an almost hellish glow. Indeed, if Valtaya had to choose an image for one of the Nine Hells, the fire blackened landscape that had once been forest would be her first choice. Soundlessly the young elf slumped to her knees, still leaning on the staff in her hands.

"Valtaya," Druce said quietly. Valtaya looked up to her teacher. "We have work to do. You may mourn the Mother's wounds later, but for now we must tend to Her."

"I have never seen a storm created," Fife said, turning to Druce as Valtaya slowly rose from the ground. Although the ranger did not show it easily, the young druid could still pick up on a note of dismay in his voice. "Will it take long?"

"Not very long," Druce replied. "From the time I begin casting to the first drops of rain should be less than half of an hour. But I will need to travel inside the fire's area, in order to affect as much of it as possible."

"We can follow along the leading edge of it here," Fife said, pointing to the skeletal remains front of them. Valtaya had no desire to venture into the charred area, but steeled her will to follow the others. "It would seem that most of the fire has died behind the leading edge, and we can make it to the center of the fire line with few problems."

Druce nodded his affirmation to the plan. Slowly Fife stepped out of the last of the underbrush and into the constantly widening dead zone. Druce and Dolan followed next, but Hefydd paused for a moment with Valtaya as the two elves looked out over the destruction.

"Guess I should have stayed in Oakenbough," the wizard said, trying to hide is horror at the sight. Hefydd forced out a bit of a laugh. "Well, I guess it's too late to go back now."

Valtaya nodded numbly, but could not bring herself to answer her companion's attempt to steady his nerves. Slowly Valtaya took a step into the dead zone, almost wincing as a puff of warm ashes rose where her boots touched the ground. Druce, Dolan, and Fife were already moving far ahead, while Keridwyn waited behind the group, her back almost constantly to the devastation. With a last deep breath of the smoke filled air, Valtaya forced herself forward, catching up to the rest of her group. To her right, the fires that had left the dead zone behind came into clearer view, eating through the trees and underbrush like an insatiable demon.

Although she knew she should be keeping up with the others and watching for any signs of orcs, goblins, or any other enemies, Valtaya found herself slowing several times as her eyes were drawn back to the spectacle of the fire raging to the east. Never before had she seen such devastation. Despite the wet spring and the large amount of water that the trees and underbrush should have collected, the flames continued to sear their way through the foliage with an almost supernatural speed. The hellish glow cast by the fires threw heavy shadows from the charred remains inside the dead zone, the alternating patterns of light and darkness playing havoc with even her keen eyesight. The inferno crackled and popped constantly, while the ground and remains around her continued to hiss as the cinders under her feet reluctantly disintegrated into ash. The constant noise drowned out the sounds of anything else around her, and Valtaya found herself growing more and more nervous in the presence of the unchecked conflagration.

"We will start here," Druce said, snapping Valtaya out of her uneasy thoughts. The young druid watched as Fife nodded and made a simple gesture to the forest with his bow. Immediately Keridwyn and Dolan rushed off into the darkness, disappearing almost immediately. Druce considered the flames ahead of him for a moment, then turned to Hefydd. "Cast your shelter to the west," the druid instructed. "We will need it close enough to watch the flames through the night, but not so close that we cannot escape if the fire turns back on us."

"As you say," Hefydd said with a nod. The wizard started back slightly from the fire, already drawing a scroll case from his belt. Valtaya hesitated for a moment, but finally approached her mentor as he and Fife made one last examination of the flames before them.

"What can I do?" the young druid asked, anxious to do something other than simply stand idly by while the fires continued to rage.

"For the time being, you simply have to wait," Druce replied. "Come the morning, your skill in healing and wood lore will both be tested as we restore this land to life, but for now there is nothing you can do."

Valtaya nodded uncertainly, wanting to do more, but Druce had already forgotten his apprentice as he focused on the task of conjuring a storm from the night sky.

* * *

"It isn't much, but it will keep us dry."

"It's fine, Hefydd," Dolan said with a smile as he looked over the simple cottage that the wizard had conjured into being while Druce summoned his storm. To Valtaya, the squat structure was anything but pretty, constructed of stone and mortar with only two small windows, a narrow chimney, and an iron bound wooden door.

"A human must have created this spell," Fife said, looking over the structure with a faint hint of distaste for the form. "No elf would make such a square, ungainly building."

"The roof won't catch fire from embers, will it?" Keridwyn inquired, looking over the thatched top of the cottage. Hefydd shook his head with a smile.

"No, it won't," the wizard assured the rangers. "The whole thing is as tough as iron, and although it isn't exactly appealing, it will certainly keep the storm off of us."

"That's all we really need of it tonight," Fife decided, looking up to the night sky as the wind began to rise. Already the smoke overhead was blowing to the south, clearing the heavens for only a moment before storm clouds descended from the north. "Everyone inside."

Although the cottage was hardly the place where Valtaya would have liked to spend the night, for the moment the human building and the rough hewn wooden furniture she could see inside was far preferable to the clouds of ash and smoke that the wind stirred up into her eyes. Hefydd quickly ducked inside, and within a moment all of the others, save Druce, had followed the wizard inside. Valtaya hesitated at the door and watched as her teacher stood outside, looking up to the sky as ashes and smoke swirled around him.

"Druce?" the younger druid called out. "Are… are you coming?"

"Yes," Druce said, finally turning back to the summoned cottage. The older druid cast one last glance to the sky, and Valtaya almost thought she saw a look of puzzlement on his face as he walked into the small shelter.

"Everything all right?" Fife inquired from where he had already taken a seat on one of the rough wooden benches set along a table in the center of the cottage. Druce hesitated for a moment, but then nodded slowly.

"I suppose so," the druid answered. Fife paused for a moment, giving Valtaya the impression that he did not quite believe the druid's answer.

"How long will the storm last?" Dolan inquired as he set his bow against the far wall between two of the four bunk beds lined along that side of the cottage.

"Until dawn," Druce answered, finally growing more comfortable. Valtaya grew more relieved as she saw her mentor relax. "If all goes well, the storm should drown out the fires during the night, and in the morning we can set about to repair the damage and check on the treants."

"We have some time to ourselves, then," Keridwyn said, smiling faintly. "Perhaps we should have included a bard on our journey."

"We'll make do," Dolan said, coming back to the table after dropping his pack on one of the bunks. "After all, between Fife and Druce, we have a half a millennium of experiences to draw upon for some interesting stories."

"I'm not that old," Fife said, feigning a bit of indignance. Dolan laughed at the comment, then looked up to the ceiling as drops of rain began to beat down on the cottage.

"Here's the test," Dolan said, turning to Hefydd. "If we get wet, you're to blame."

"Just trust me," Hefydd said with a grin. "It'll only leak where you sleep."

Dolan and Keridwyn laughed at the remark along with Valtaya, but the young druid's eyes were drawn to Druce as he continued to stare at the ceiling. For a moment the young noble was puzzled by her teacher's concentration, but she suddenly realized what was wrong as the rest of the group quieted down and took notice of the change.

The rain was already stopping.

"Get your bows," Fife ordered, instantly sending his rangers into action. Dolan and Keridwyn grabbed their weapons and pulled their cloaks tightly around them, relying on the enchantments imbued in the fabric to augment their already excellent skills at stealth. The three rangers swiftly disappeared through the door and into the darkness. Hefydd paused for a second, giving the rangers time to fan out from the cottage, then ducked through the door himself. Valtaya gripped her staff tightly, waiting for Druce to head out into the darkness. The older druid considered the door for a moment, then turned to his student.

"Be calm, and think clearly," the old druid advised her. "You'll be fine."

"Thank you," Valtaya said, calming slightly at her teacher's assurance. Then they too stepped out into the night.

* * *

A strong wind was still blowing as the two druids stepped out of the cottage, but in the few minutes that the elves had been inside it had turned completely on itself, once again blowing the fire to the north. Smoke and ash still billowed up around Valtaya; the rain had not even had a chance to settle the ash out of the air before it had ended. The fires still burned just to her east.

"I don't see anything out here," Hefydd said quietly, standing just north of the cottage between two scorched trees. Druce nodded quietly, but said nothing as he squinted his eyes into the blowing cinders. Valtaya caught sight of Dolan for a moment, but the rangers, for the most part, had disappeared into the remains of the forest. Slowly the young druid scanned the darkness, shielding her eyes against the glow of the flames as she tried to make out any shapes against the burned terrain.

Druce's scream of pain spun her back around, but she barely had time to react when something raked across her chest. The young druid barely spotted what seemed to be a being of pure shadow dart across her line of vision as a spike of cold punched into her stomach, sending a terrible chill through her and instantly sapping her of her strength. Valtaya staggered backward and almost doubled over with the impact even as Druce dropped to one knee, still crying out in pain as another shadow seemingly disappeared through the darkness behind one of the trees. Hefydd turned, already raising his arms to cast a spell, but a huge, shadowy dog was suddenly pouncing on him and driving him to the ground under its weight.

Dolan and Keridwyn both appeared from the forest, their arrows slamming into the shadowy mastiff as it gored the wizard. The monster roared in pain with the impacts and leapt away, fading once more into shadows before Dolan's second arrow could strike it. At the same moment Fife appeared, his swords darting into the inky shadows and somehow finding the huge hound in the darkness. Valtaya stumbled back to her feet and turned to Druce as the three rangers tried to keep the huge hound from escaping into the shadows, her mind racing for a healing spell as she saw the blood staining his robes from his middle back all the way to his knees. Hefydd was also badly mauled, and barely managed to climb back to his feet and steady himself against a tree.

Just in time to put himself in the path of a lightning bolt.

Hefydd had no time to scream as the bolt ripped through him and continued on its path to Druce. The old druid tried to shield himself from the worst of the bolt, but he was still knocked to the ground by the arc of electricity.

"Druce!" Valtaya screamed, racing for the older druid. She had only taken a step towards her mentor when she saw something appear behind Keridwyn as the ranger nocked an arrow and pulled her bowstring taut. Even as Valtaya tried to scream out a warning the shadow struck, driving its sword through Keridwyn's spine and tossing her to the ground. Dolan brought his bow to bear and quickly turned to fire on the small, fast moving shadow that had attacked Keridwyn, but before he could loose his arrow a pillar of incandescent flames erupted from the ground beneath him, incinerating the ranger. Valtaya skidded to a stop, frozen in terror at the amiable ranger's horrific death. Fife, the last ranger standing, lasted only a second longer as a fireball exploded almost directly in front of him, enveloping both the ranger and the shadow mastiff he had been fighting in a swirling inferno.

"Run, Valtaya!" Druce ordered, glancing over his shoulder as he struggled to his feet. The old druid had already unslung his shield from his shoulder and drawn his sickle, preparing to meet some hulking, misshapen creature barely visible in the charred trees. Druce's entire back was covered in his own blood, and his hair had been largely burned off in the stroke of lightning that had hit him, but still the old druid raised himself to full height to face the new threat in the trees. "Run, and don't look back!"

"I won't leave you!" Valtaya countered, raising her staff in front of her in preparedness for battle. Terrified by the sudden, brutal assault and still reeling with the icy chill of her shadowy assailant's strike sapping the strength from her body, the young druid was nonetheless determined to stand by Druce's side to her last breath.

"Someone must reach Oakenbough!" Druce shouted over his shoulder. A single javelin, short and slim, streaked out of the darkness, but the old druid somehow threw his shield up in time to knock the missile aside. Druce glanced back to his student, and a look of rage came over his face. "You go _NOW_!"

The sheer force of Druce's command jarred Valtaya into action. The young druid turned and raced south, sprinting for all she was worth into the darkness. Behind her, she could hear Druce casting a spell, but her teacher's rapid chant was cut off by a terrible roar of flames and another fireball's explosion. Valtaya stumbled and nearly fell as she hazarded a glance over her shoulder, but she could see nothing save a smoking crater where her mentor had been standing.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she continued her flight to the south. She had barely covered a dozen more yards when she heard the first sounds of pursuit; all around her, dark shadows darted between trees and swirls of ash and smoke gave away the positions of her pursuers. The young noble ran for all she was worth, but her foes were incredibly fast. With each step she took through the scorched landscape, her pursuers seemed to take three, and within too short a time she could hear and see glimpses of them to her east.

A terrible howl rose up from almost directly in front of her, throwing the young druid into a blind panic. Without even thinking Valtaya veered west, racing into the heart of the burned zone in her desperate attempts to outdistance her hunters. The young druid dodged through the skeletal trees and vaulted ash choked streams, stumbling several times but catching herself before she could fall headlong. Constantly the young druid threw glances over her shoulder or to the burned forest around her, trying to keep one step ahead of her speedy pursuers.

She should have been looking forward.

Valtaya's headlong flight ended with a sudden, stunning impact with some kind of net. The abruptness of the collision blasted the air from her lungs and numbed her for a long moment, but as she regained her senses she quickly tried to escape whatever it was that had grabbed hold of her. Valtaya's arms were held out from her body and only the tip of one boot touched the ground, while her long, silvery hair was now stuck to the gluey strands of the web that had captured her, effectively blinding her. In a panic the young druid fought desperately against the web that had trapped her, but she only managed to entangle herself even further into the sticky strands.

A voice behind her made her stop struggling. It was a masculine voice, but it was also as smooth and melodic as any bard she had heard in the court of Oakenbough. While the words were incomprehensible to her, they almost seemed sinister in their apparently offhand tone. Carefully the elf tried to turn her head to at least try and see the man that had addressed her, but all she managed to do was stick more of her hair to her face. The man behind her laughed, a horrid, melodic sound that carried over the sudden stillness in the charred forest. Then she heard him take a step closer, almost as though he intentionally ground his feet into the ashes to let her know where he was. Something was uncorked behind her, further confusing the trapped druid.

Strong brandy was poured over her head. Valtaya spat and choked on the liquid, trying desperately to free her hands and wipe at her stinging eyes. The glue holding her head and hair to the web dissolved, and Valtaya quickly snapped her head back to give herself a clear field of vision. For a long moment, all she could see in front of her were indistinct blurs, but finally her sight returned in full.

The man standing in front of her was not taller than Fife had been at Valtaya's most generous estimate. A knee length cloak, black with streaks of midnight blue and darkest green, shrouded most of the blackened leather armor he wore and largely concealed the swords on his hips. Long, snow white hair, carefully cut into an unfamiliar, sharply angled pattern, framed a face as black as coal and two eyes as red as blood. Pointed ears poked out of the mane of hair. As her captor, undeniably elven despite his ebony skin, saw the horror on her face, his lips curled into a malicious, terrifying smile.

"It can't be," Valtaya whispered, darkness eating away at the edges of her sight. She suddenly felt very dizzy. "Drow… don't exist."

"We are only a nightmare," the drow in front of her said, speaking her language perfectly. The dark elf's ghastly laugh was the last thing she heard before she slipped away into unconsciousness.


	6. Caught in a Spider's Web

** V**

"It's time to wake up, little girl."

The words seemed to float to her from somewhere far away, echoing through endless caverns before they finally reached her. Valtaya could not identify the voice or where she was, or even if she was awake or unconscious.

"Druce?" the young noble asked, her voice weak and almost inaudible in the darkness. There was a low, melodic laugh somewhere closer to her, but it still seemed to be very distant.

The resounding slap across her face was much closer.

Valtaya awoke instantly as she toppled to the ground, trying desperately to get to her feet and resume her escape. Her attempts proved useless, however, as she quickly found her hands and feet bound together by sticky strands of webbing, leaving her completely helpless in the face of her tormentors. Still the young druid tried to kick free of the webbing that trussed her, frantic to escape her hideous tormentors, the demons of elven legend known as the drow.

A flurry of kicks suddenly landed in her unprotected chest, blasting the wind from her lungs and quickly ceasing her struggles. Valtaya inhaled on reflex, gasping for breath, but took in nothing but ash as she landed face first in the cinders covering the ground. Choking and coughing uncontrollably on the soot, Valtaya barely felt herself lifted roughly back into a kneeling position. Although swirls of color danced across her vision and stole her sight, Valtaya could feel one of her diabolic captors squatting in front of her.

"Try not to make me upset," the dark elf said, his smooth, melodic voice taking a definite sinister edge. "While I am not allowed to kill you, nothing was said about how much I could beat you."

Valtaya's vision finally cleared, and once again she found herself face to face with the malicious drow that had originally captured her. For a long moment she locked eyes with the monster in front of her, mustering her courage in the face of such a demon. She could not show fear to such a perversion of the elven race. The drow had been forced below ground millennia ago for their crazed, bloody druidic rituals that had called for elven sacrifices and demonic counsel. They were never supposed to have survived their underground exile. Despite her best efforts, however, the young druid could barely face the burning crimson orbs of the dark elf leaning menacingly over her.

"What do you want with me?" Valtaya managed to ask, certain that her voice did not mask the terror coursing through her.

"I want to kill you," the drow answered with a chuckle. His amusement with the situation seemed to grow with each word, until he was practically bursting into a fit of laughter "We all want to kill you. For now, the question is how we want to kill you!"

"Cadwared!" a second male voice snapped, just beyond the leather clad drow. Cadwared, if that was truly his name, turned at the sound of the voice, allowing Valtaya a clear glimpse of the newcomer. He too was a drow, with ebon skin and frightening blood colored eyes, but he was taller than the warrior and dressed in scintillating black robes beneath a cloak almost identical to the warrior's cape. The newcomer's hair was also carefully trimmed to include several sharp angles and a long mane, but his hair held a noticeably silver tone even in the darkness. The leather clad drow stood and quickly reported to the apparent leader's side, and for a minute or so they argued in their own language. Finally, Cadwared and his superior turned back to the bound surface elf.

"We could kill her now, and be done with it," Cadwared stated, switching intentionally back to the Argent language as the two returned to her. Cadwared turned a particularly vile grin on her as his eyes swept over her. "We have our fun and leave her here. There will be other females to capture and sacrifice."

"Talaith wants this one," the robe wearing drow decided, looking down at his prisoner. "She is of noble birth, and she wields the power of their Mother. She is what we need."

Cadwared dropped his eyes to the ground in a show of disappointment. Valtaya closed her eyes, relieved that Cadwared would not be able to have his way but fearful of why they wanted her.

"Unless," the robe wearing drow continued after a pause, "she becomes too unruly. If she resists too much, she will become a liability. Then she is yours."

Valtaya's eyes snapped open at that. The robe wearing drow smiled coldly at her, satisfied with his warning for her to behave. Cadwared's spirits also lifted at the prospect, and he knelt down once again in front of her. He raised one hand to her face, but instead of a rough slap the drow gently brushed back her hair. Valtaya's skin crawled at the horrifying show of affection, but the robe wearing drow's icy stare, practically daring her to try to resist his subordinate's advance, kept her from trying to pull back from the touch.

"Please," Cadwared whispered as he leaned in close to her. Valtaya shut her eyes tightly, trying with all her might to hold back the tremor of fear running through her. "Please try to escape. I look forward to the chase, and to the capture."

Cadwared lingered a moment more, but thankfully the dark elf retreated. Valtaya opened her eyes again to see the leather clad elf walking silently away through the ashes, disappearing into a clump of blackened underbrush. The robed drow still watched over her, however, and as Cadwared disappeared he moved closer to her.

"You are frightened of us, faerie," he said, spitting out the word as if it were a curse. "And you should be."

Valtaya simply turned away from the drow. The show of defiance seemed to do nothing more than amuse her tormentor, as he let out a low chuckle.

"Let us be civilized for a moment," the robed drow suggested, his tone growing slightly more amiable. "My name is Fychan of House Evnissien. Who might you be, noble?"

Valtaya looked back to the drow, but said nothing. Although she wanted to voice her defiance and her hatred of the villain facing her, her fear of what the drow might do to her held her in check. Fychan, for his part, simply shook his head at the display.

"Very well, faerie," the drow said. He leaned down over her, his eyes taking on an almost demonic light as he held her gaze. "I am going to ask you a more important question," he started, his growing terrifying, "and you are going to answer it. Do you understand?"

Valtaya intended not to answer her captor, but she found herself nodding in fearful acquiescence to the drow. With her display of frightened obedience, the dark elf's more amiable mood returned.

"One of your companions also escaped," Fychan explained. "Why don't you tell me, where might he have gone?"

* * *

It felt like hours since he had taken refuge in the stream bed.

The fireball had scorched him badly and thrown him into the shallow, tepid water, but Fife had survived the vicious assault that had killed the shadow mastiff and nearly incinerated him. The water had quite possibly saved his life; his hair, once held back in a thick braid, had been burned off almost to his scalp, and even with the water immediately dousing the flames that had covered him blisters had begun to form up and down his left side. The elf had managed to keep hold of his long sword when the fireball had hit, but his short sword had been thrown clear of his hand. Fife's magical long bow had also come with him, as it was slung over his shoulder during the attack, but the ranger was also fearful of the condition it might be in after taking the full heat of a fireball and the full impact of the elf's weight when he had landed in the stream.

The water was just deep enough to cover him and allow the ashes to float back over him, giving Fife the opportunity to hide while he tried to figure out his next course of action. He had seen Dolan, Keridwyn, and Hefydd all fall in battle, while Druce had already been badly wounded by the initial assault. He had not seen any of what had happened to Valtaya, but her proximity to Druce when the lightning bolt hit meant that she too had likely perished in the attack. Already badly wounded and certain to be killed if he rose above the water's surface, Fife had done the only thing he could do; remain hidden. For what seemed like half the night he kept underwater, poking only his nose and mouth out of the ash covered surface to breathe. Somehow he had escaped detection after the battle, but his brush with death and his seemingly miraculous evasion did little to quell the thought that he had been a coward.

Fife finally sat up, holding his sword tentatively in front of him as he surveyed the battleground. For a moment he could see nothing in the pall of smoke and the darkness, but then he began to make out objects. Keridwyn he found first, not far to his south, hacked and mangled almost beyond recognition. Fife located Hefydd next, but only by the blasted, charred body's location. The lightning bolt had removed any sort of identifiable features from the corpse. The spot where Dolan had fallen was now a smoking circle, and the lump of charcoal in the center of that circle was presumably the unfortunate ranger. Druce, the powerful druid, Fife found last, and only after he had left the stream; a smoldering crater showed where the flame strikes and fireballs had ended the druid's life and reduced the body to little more than ash and charred bones.

Fife wanted nothing more than to rest, to mourn the loss of his companions, but he knew he had much to do before he could properly pay his respects to those had had abandoned. If their deaths were to mean anything, all of Argent had to be aware of the shadowy attackers that came with the fires. The ranger checked his bow first, thankfully finding it intact and ready for use, then hastily searched the battlefield for what supplies he could salvage. His short sword he found quickly, half buried beneath the ashes where he and the mastiff had fought, but his pack, exposed when Hefydd's magical cottage had disappeared, had been incinerated during the fight. Finally, with one last, mournful glance to his slain companions, Fife set out to the south, determined to run all night and into the next day if that was what he had to do to reach Ceallai before his attackers realized that they had left one elf alive.

Several footprints in the ash stopped his run almost before it started.

Four sets of tracks led to the south, catching and holding the ranger's attention. Judging by the distance between footprints, all four had been running at a dead sprint, but at first there appeared to be no reason for such haste. One set of tracks came from a huge dog, not unlike the shadow mastiff he had fought earlier in the night. The other three sets, however, baffled the ranger, as they could not have been made by anything other than an elf.

Slowly Fife followed the tracks along the ground, but almost as soon as he had picked up the trail the prints began to separate. Still moving at top speed, the four seemed to be spreading out, trying to flank something between them or possibly herd it in some direction. Several times Fife crossed between the two sets, but after his third cross of the bare ground between the tracks he stopped ands shook his head. The four attackers must have been chasing something, but not a single footprint marred the ground between them…

"Valtaya!" Fife suddenly breathed out. In their woodland homes, druids were impossible to track because they could pass without trace through any forest. Even in the scorched, ashen forests the young druid had retained this power, but her pursuers' tracks were clearly visible in the soft ashes that covered the ground. Quickly the ranger set out on the trail, hoping that the final member of his party had somehow escaped her hunters. As he continued to follow the path, however, he became more and more convinced that she could not have done so; the tracks veered west abruptly, and they still seemed to be herding something along with them. If Valtaya had not died at the hands of their attackers, she had at the very least been captured. He had failed his companions once already. If Valtaya was alive, he was not going to fail her.

Fife confirmed his latter suspicion only a few minutes later. The trail led to a pair of large, burned out oaks that had grown relatively close together. The tracks grew closer together, indicating that the hunter was no longer running, and then stopped altogether in front of the oaks. Other tracks, oddly shaped, two clawed prints the likes of which he had never seen before, joined the others. All of the tracks converged here, shuffling about in the cinders while they must have worked to bind their captive. Then the tracks started north, back into the heart of the burned zone. For a moment Fife studied the tracks heading north, then turned back to the oaks. Although it was dark and the strands almost translucent, the ranger noticed a huge spider web stretched between the two trees just before he could step into it. Fife backed off a step quickly and gazed in amazement at the enormous web, completely at a loss for how or why it was string between the trees. For all his time in the western reaches of Argent, the ranger had never even heard of a spider that could spin such a large web. As he tried to discern this newest twist's significance, the web trembled ever so slightly.

Fife jumped back a step and drew his swords, barely avoiding a large net of the same webbing as the initial trap. Before the errant net could even settle to the ground, an enormous, four legged spider launched itself from the top of the web, crashing into the ranger only a moment before he could dive out of the way. Fife managed to ward off the thing's clawed hands, but the monster managed somehow to find a way through his defenses and bite into his forearm with its mandibles. Summoning all of his strength to fight off a wave of dizziness from some kind of poison, Fife suppressed a cry of pain and shoved forward, throwing the spidery attacker back far enough to bring his swords back into line. The thing lurched forward again, intending to land another bite, but before it could get close enough Fife dropped low and whirled, slashing through the creature's bloated stomach with both blades. The thing hissed in agony and staggered away from the ranger, but Fife shot forward and ducked under a flailing arm, running his long sword through the creature almost to the hilt. With a last, pathetic squeal the thing slid off of the elf's blade and dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

"What in the Nine Hells are you?" Fife whispered, kneeling next to the monstrosity. A closer examination revealed the thing to be some kind of cross between a spider and a humanoid; its bloated, greenish yellow abdomen seemed to be a stark contrast to its gangly arms and legs, and spinnerets, much like a spider's, protruded from the bottom of its chest. Two large, bulbous black eyes were placed on the sides of its head, but between them six more eyes, or at least what appeared to be eyes, sat above the four mean looking mandibles surrounding its mouth. Uneven tufts of hair grew from its head and shoulders, and each of its arms and legs ended in two nasty looking claws.

Fife poked at the carcass a moment longer, but then turned back to the web still strung across the path. If Valtaya had indeed come this way, the evidence confronting him suggested that she had been captured by the spider-thing and turned over to the elves that apparently controlled it. Although he had no idea what elves would control such monstrosities and so viciously attack their own kin, Fife wasted no more time considering the question as he turned north to follow the tracks and find his last companion.

* * *

"It certainly took you long enough to get here."

"Many apologies, dear sister," Fychan said, bowing deeply before the chain mail clad drow in front of him. "We were interested in covering our tracks, just in case the faerie's companion decided to come after us."

"No excuses, brother," Talaith Evnissien declared coldly, glaring up at her younger sibling. Although drow women were usually slightly taller than their male counterparts and Talaith was not short for her kind, Fychan held at least two inches on his older sister. And like most drow, Talaith's flowing, silvery white hair, jet black skin, and almost delicate features made her far more beautiful and impressive than the pale skinned faeries of the surface. Coupled with her commanding, vicious personality and simmering crimson eyes, Talaith Evnissien seemed the very model of a matron mother, and many drow males would risk the perils of bedding the eldest daughter of a noble family to spend a night in the throes of passion with the elegant priestess. "Time is of the essence. That horrible ball of fire will rise in the sky again."

"I take it you mean the sun?" Fychan inquired, though he knew full well what his sister meant. Of all four drow that had come to the surface, Talaith had been the most initially revolted by the appearance of the brilliant golden globe that crossed the sky during the day, and had since professed undying hatred for the blinding light source. Fychan certainly had no love for the sun himself, but he had at least borne the curse of that fiery orb with more dignity than his sister. For her part, Talaith nodded angrily as she looked back to the heavens.

"Lolth steal that ball's light forever," the drow cursed, calling upon the matron deity of the drow as she had every morning since their arrival on the surface. Fychan was used to such curses by now; Talaith, like almost every female noble, was a devoted and brutal priestess of the Spider Queen, and Lolth had certainly given her blessings to the sadistic heir of House Evnissien. Lurking in the darkness just beyond her, three ettercaps, ugly, bloated humanoid spiders, spun their webs through the blackened and charred trees, setting more traps in case the last surviving faerie should find his way to their encampment. The priestess had also raised a trio of dwarven skeletons to serve her as bodyguards and warriors, and her array of clerical spells was certainly a match of anything a surface elf devotee of their putrid Mother could bring to bear. The priestess cast a final baleful glance at the brightening sky, then turned to the captured faerie kneeling next to Cadwared. "That is the one?" Talaith inquired.

"That is the one," Fychan observed, looking back to the helpless, ash covered surface elf. She had managed to control most of her fear in the face of her captors, but the drow wizard was certain that she would break easily under the machinations of Talaith and her handmaiden, Rhonwen. Although Rhonwen, like Cadwared, was a commoner bound in service to House Evnissien, she had also thrown herself wholeheartedly to the Spider Queen, and between the two of them Rhonwen and Talaith made an exquisitely demonic pair. Rhonwen held a pair of ettercaps and three more axe wielding dwarven skeletons under her sway, but she was not as powerful as the noble Talaith. "What would you like me to do with her?"

"She is our prize," Talaith said, slowly walking towards the surface elf. The faerie trembled visibly at the sight of the chain mail clad priestess, her sapphire eyes locked on the whip of writhing snakes belted to the noble's side. Fychan himself had felt that whip's sting many times, and could understand the faerie's renewed apprehension. "Matron Saffir will want her intact."

"She will slow us down, and could draw attention to us," Fychan pointed out. "Perhaps we should kill her now."

"Perhaps, dear brother, you should not question Matron Saffir's will, or the will of the Spider Queen," Talaith snarled, turning on the wizard. "Have you forgotten how recently it was that we defeated House Hen Wyneb? Have you forgotten how the higher houses watch us, knowing that we are ascending the ranks so quickly? Have you forgotten that we are in dire need of Lolth's favor if we are to survive the coming decade, and that a victory against the faeries will secure our place as the most favored House in all of Llyr?"

"I have not," Fychan replied submissively. Talaith continued to the surface elf, stopping in front of her and leering down at the trapped faerie.

"A noble, I wager," Talaith remarked, grabbing a handful of the faerie's silvery blond hair. The surface elf gasped in pain as Talaith nearly pulled her off the ground by her tresses. "And she bears all the markings of a druid. A perfect catch, brother. Matron Saffir will be pleased. This one's blood will seal our favor with Lolth."

"I am certain, but what do we do with her until then?" Fychan inquired. The wizard almost hoped that his sister would allow him to return to the lightless city of Llyr and escape the hellish expanse of the surface world, but the thought of killing another faerie, like he had the foolish surface wizard who had stood up in time to receive the brunt of his lightning bolt, kept him from volunteering to return to their subterranean home.

"How quickly could you teleport with her to the matron?" Talaith asked.

"I do not have the spell readied," Fychan answered. "It would take me a day to prepare it and teleport, then at least another day until I could return."

"Too much time," Talaith decided. "My skeletons will carry her with us."

"As you wish," Fychan said with a nod. Talaith hesitated for a moment, then turned to her brother.

"Hurry and create our shelter before that horrible ball of fire returns," the priestess ordered.


	7. Know Thy Enemy

** VI**

What tracks there were disappeared, as though the entire group had vanished.

Fife stopped and considered the puzzling evidence for a moment. The ranger had tracked Valtaya's captors through the night and into the day, making his way deep into the heart of the fire ravaged forest. He had moved swiftly despite the pain flaring through his side, stopping only long enough to use his knowledge of wood magic to heal some of his worst injuries. Even through the darkness Fife had kept on the trail, refusing to rest until he had at least seen for himself if the young noble had survived the night. The three sets of apparently elven tracks had been joined by a fourth, and the odd, two clawed footprints from the spider things indicated that at least four more guarded their elven masters. Seven other sets of tracks, appearing dwarven except for the noticeably light impressions of the prints, also followed the elves, but despite the odds Fife was determined to find Valtaya and see his enemies firsthand.

But now they were gone.

"They couldn't have just vanished," Fife said to the empty, scorched forest around him. While smoke still rose from the occasional smoldering tree and soot still rose into the air, the early morning sun shone down brightly on the ranger as he made one more circuit of the immediate area. Still, even his keen eyes could find no new footprints, nothing to indicate that they had done anything other than fly away or vaporize on the spot.

Fife stopped for a moment and looked up at the sun, considering the fiery orb for a long moment. When he and the others had first reached the western reaches, the ranger had felt some sort of strange presence, but that feeling of being watched had only bothered him at night. When they had reached the edges of the wildfires, nothing had seemed out of place until after dark as well. Fife had already considered his opponents to be entirely nocturnal in their dealings, but faced with the sudden end of their tracks he was beginning to think that they took some kind of refuge not only from the sun, but from the entire forest. Although he had never seen them used before, Fife had heard of spells that could provide refuge on the ethereal plane or some other realm. If such a spell had been used, Fife would likely be unable to reach them until darkness returned and the mysterious elves returned to the forest. In the meantime, the ranger could do nothing but wait.

"I need some rest, anyway," Fife decided aloud, looking around the scorched forest. Very little shelter of any sort remained, but the ranger cautiously moved back through the underbrush and found himself a bit of shelter underneath a large fallen tree. Already covered with ash and mud, the ranger blended easily into the sooty landscape, and within minutes the elf had managed to set himself into an uneasy trance as he waited out the long day.

* * *

She had wondered what the drow would do with the coming of the sun. The elven legends had been uncertain if the drow could even bear the mere sight of the sun after their forced exile into the earth, but the dark elves' increased anxiety and constant glances to the morning sky were clear signs that they were not eager to face daylight. Valtaya was hoping to take advantage of any edge the daylight would give her, praying that the light sensitive drow would be unable to guard her effectively under a bright sun. Perhaps, if Druce or one of her other companions had indeed escaped the carnage during the night, she would be rescued while the drow tried to avoid the light. But as the sky grew brighter and the first rays of light began to creep over the eastern horizon, Fychan had opened a shimmering portal in the very ground itself. One by one the drow had disappeared into that shimmering portal, until at last Valtaya was lifted from the ground by a pair of axe wielding, dwarf sized skeletons and dumped rudely through the gate into a lightless cave. The drow shelter was nothing more than a large cave, but as she pushed herself back to her knees in one rocky corner, the shimmering portal and any chance of a daytime escape or rescue disappeared. Now she was trapped in some kind of extradimensional cave with her captors, completely lightless except for one small candle that Fychan used to study his tomes. Her situation seemed to be completely hopeless, at least until the dark elves returned to Argent after nightfall.

"You may as well drink something."

Valtaya looked up at Fychan, uncertain how to treat the drow's actions. While Cadwared and the brutal, armored woman that she assumed to be Talaith made it clear that they bore no love for the surface elf, the drow wizard seemed to at least show a certain amount of civility to his captive. At least for the moment, the dark elf seemed to bear no ill will in his eyes or deeds as he knelt in front of her with a small waterskin. Valtaya was certainly parched after her long ordeal, but for the moment the druid hesitated to take anything from the dark elf.

"Could you free my hands, so I can drink?" she finally asked, shifting uncomfortably. Her bonds had forced her to kneel for hours already, and her entire body ached from the strain. While she was uncertain if she could escape, or even manage to cast a single spell if the drow complied, she could at least stretch slightly and relieve some of the cramps that ached in her legs.

"I can hold the waterskin for you," Fychan offered, unwilling to give her any sort of freedom. Valtaya shifted once more, trying to imply her discomfort, but the dark elf remained oblivious to her problems. "Drink it," the wizard suggested again, uncorking the waterskin. Without any other recourse, and wishing to at least rinse the rest of the ashen taste from her mouth, Valtaya leaned forward and allowed the drow to pour the water into her mouth. The druid quickly found herself almost lunging at the waterskin, eager to take the edge off of her terrible thirst, but all too soon she had finished off the last of the cool liquid. Fychan smiled slightly at the young druid as he corked the empty waterskin and replaced it in one of the pockets inside his robes.

"Thank you," Valtaya said after a long moment, reluctantly showing a bit of appreciation for the drow's hospitality. Fychan chuckled.

"Consider it a trade of niceties," the wizard said. Valtaya's brow wrinkled in puzzlement at the remark. "You needed the water. I would like to know more about you."

"More… about me?" Valtaya asked. For a moment her vision blurred slightly, but as soon as it had come her sight cleared. Fychan nodded.

"What is your name, faerie?" drow inquired. The last word seemed to echo in the druid's ears for a moment.

"Valtaya," the young druid replied, once again having difficulty focusing. She had not meant to tell the wizard anything just yet, but he suddenly seemed less of a threat to her than he had only moments before.

"Valtaya," Fychan repeated, his voice echoing again in her ears as a haze seemed to descend over her mind. The young druid tried to stand and clear her head, but found herself strangely restrained. "Tell me, Valtaya," the wizard continued, sounding far away now, "are you of noble birth?"

"Yes," the druid answered dreamily. Something in the back of her mind screamed at her to stop talking, that something was horribly wrong, but the warning barely filtered through the haze clouding her mind. "My… father is… a lord."

"Your father is a lord," Fychan repeated. Valtaya looked up at the wizard, but his ebon face and silvery white hair seemed to flow together in a grayish blur. "What is he a lord of?"

"He advises… the king," Valtaya answered. The voice in the back of her mind screamed one last warning before it died away, leaving the druid defenseless against the amiable wizard's questions.

"He advises the king?" Fychan echoed. Valtaya nodded, the simple move almost causing her to lose her balance. "Who is the king, Valtaya?"

"King… Setanta," Valtaya answered, once more slowly trying to stand. Something annoying held her hands to her feet. "Why… can't I… stand up, Fychan?" the young druid asked.

"Don't worry about that, and answer the questions," Fychan ordered. Although she could not be certain, he almost sounded irritated with her inquiry. "King Setanta. He rules your nation?"

"Yes," Valtaya answered. "Argent"

"This forest? This is Argent?" Fychan pressed. Valtaya nodded sleepily. "Where is the king of Argent?"

"In… Oakenbough," Valtaya informed the wizard. A brief instant of relative clarity showed a bit of a smile on the drow's face.

"And how would I get to Oakenbough from here, Valtaya?" Fychan inquired.

"You… you go south… and then… follow the… the river," Valtaya mumbled. It was getting more and more difficult to keep her eyes open, but she felt she had to try, for Fychan's sake.

"What river?" Fychan asked.

"Embléz," Valtaya managed. The last pieces of the world finally slipped away from her, and she drifted into unconsciousness.

* * *

"I would be surprised if you discovered anything at all of use."

"We had the time and the means," Fychan said with a shrug. Talaith looked down with disgust on the sleeping surface elf. "We may as well pry some information about the faeries from her."

"We should simply beat the information from her," Cadwared suggested, sitting against one wall of the cave while he watched the sleeping faerie. "I think you're being too nice to her."

"I think you're forgetting that Lolth will want her sacrifice intact," Rhonwen said, speaking for Talaith. The noble's handmaiden, though a hair shorter than Fychan, was the largest member of the group, not quite as feminine as Talaith but an attractive drow nonetheless. Like Talaith, Rhonwen also wore blackened chain mail and carried a snake headed whip, but also added a serrated long sword to her cache of personal weapons. As the priestess spoke, she patted the whip on her side, ready to administer a beating to Cadwared if it proved necessary or simply appealing. Talaith placed a calming hand on her fellow cleric's shoulder, stopping Rhonwen before she could draw a weapon on the assassin.

"Rhonwen is right," the noble said. "The faerie must remain largely unharmed for her sacrifice. And I will not waste my healing spells on her. For the moment, anything Fychan can learn from her through the use of his drugs will suffice."

"I doubt she will be so foolish as to trust me again," Fychan observed. Although the faerie was certainly naïve and lacked the innate intellect of a drow, he doubted that even she would make the same mistake twice. What little he had seen of the surface elves in the past assured him that Valtaya would not take another sip of water until the brink of death. "And like us, the faeries are difficult to charm."

"So have we discovered anything of use?" Talaith asked.

"They have a city, where their king lives, called Oakenbough," Fychan answered. "It is along a river called Embléz."

"A city, and a king," Talaith echoed, her eyes lighting with interest and ambition. Fychan's sister had originally treated his decision to drug the faerie with disdain, but the possibility of finding and assassinating a king of the surface elves had sparked a new, eager interest in the subject. No doubt the priestess' head was already swimming with ideas of a grand sacrifice to Lolth, one that would seal House Evnissien's ascension to the ruling council of Llyr, no doubt with Talaith replacing Matron Saffir. "Now we know their home and their king."

"Their map showed no cities," Rhonwen argued, removing a map from her backpack as she spoke. Fychan shrugged as Talaith's handmaiden unfurled the parchment that they had stolen from the first elves they had encountered on the surface. "Is she lying? Do they even know how to build a city?"

"Our sleeping poisons have a useful side effect of clouding a victim's mind," Fychan explained. "She was too fatigued and far too trusting to have lied to me."

"Then point their city out on the map," Rhonwen directed, shoving the map into Fychan's hands. The wizard looked at the map for a long moment, but then shook his head. It was certainly detailed and most likely showed the river Valtaya had referenced, but the map was not written in the drow alphabet, and as Rhonwen had observed, did not show any cities.

"These words are written in the faeries' language," the wizard stated, looking up from the parchment. "I cannot read them."

"You communicate with them!" Rhonwen snapped. Fychan considered a fiery retort to the woman, but the lines of authority between a male noble and a commoner female priestess were blurred at best. Talaith, the deciding factor in those boundaries, had not given a hint of whose side she would take if Fychan and Rhonwen came to blows. "Surely you can read their language too!"

"These only work for the spoken word," Fychan said calmly, pushing back his hair to show the sapphire and opal earring in his lobe. The enchanted jewelry that he and Cadwared wore allowed the two males to speak and understand the faerie language, but writing was another matter entirely. "They do nothing for the written language, and I do not recognize their symbols."

"Find the city, dear brother," Talaith said, pushing the map into Fychan's hands. The wizard considered himself lucky that he had not argued with Rhonwen; his older sister had apparently taken her handmaiden's side. "Do not disappoint me on this. House Evnissien's future could rest on our success. And if we lose that favor because of you, Matron Saffir will be more than happy to sacrifice her secondboy to appease Lolth."

"I can use my spells to decipher the script, or to keep the fires burning," Fychan said smoothly. Talaith and Rhonwen both seemed furious with the counter, but Talaith was far too aware of the wizard's usefulness to mete out punishment, at least for the moment. Secondboy or not, Fychan still considered himself important to the rise of House Evnissien, and even if a simple cantrip would have deciphered the surface language, he would not have cast it just to spite the arrogant priestesses. "When she wakes, perhaps she will be helpful enough to point out her home on the map, but until then we must concentrate on spreading the flames north to the tree things. At any rate, their capitol is south to a river and then east, far from our present targets."

Talaith scowled at her brother for a long moment, but finally nodded. Rhonwen's crimson eyes blazed with anger at such an act of defiance from a male, but like Fychan, she could not be certain which of the two of them held authority over the other. Any punishment Rhonwen leveled could be met by Talaith's gleeful approval or furious retribution, and for the time being the commoner seemed unwilling to test her noble's limits.

"Very well," Talaith finally said. "For the time being, we keep the fires burning to the north. But I want to know where their city is before the faerie is sacrificed."

Fychan nodded, and smiled as he looked back to the sleeping Valtaya.

"Given such time, I think I can persuade her to assist me," the wizard decided.


	8. Escape

**VII**

"I think she is angry with me, Cadwared."

"That would be terrible indeed, Fychan," Cadwared said, a smirk on his face as he once again intentionally spoke Argent. Valtaya's eyes gleamed with rage, but for the moment the young druid would say nothing to her captors as they made their jokes at her expense. "How will you go on with your life?"

"I do not know that I could go on," Fychan replied theatrically, even pretending to wipe a tear from his eye as he considered the prospect. Valtaya cast one last, furious glance at the wizard, then turned her gaze away from the two dark elves.

It was just past nightfall, and once again the drow had returned to Argent. Valtaya had been dropped rudely to her knees just outside the portal by her skeletal porters, left under the guard of the two males as Talaith and the other drow female corralled their entourage. The blackened forest around her was deathly silent except for a faint rumble in the distance, a sure sign that the dark elves' fires still raged.

"Perhaps now she will try to escape," Cadwared said, squatting next to the druid. The assassin gently touched the back of his hand to her cheek in a gentle caress, but the young druid pulled away from him immediately. "Let me know when you run, darling," Cadwared said, locking eyes with her as she tried to back away. "I'm still waiting for the chase."

"Burn in hell, drow," Valtaya snarled. Cadwared chuckled maliciously at the epithet, but thankfully stood and walked away. Fychan hesitated for a moment, his hands clasped behind his back. Valtaya turned a hateful glare on the wizard, and for a long moment the two lapsed into silence.

"You must be thirsty," Fychan finally said, almost sounding sincere.

"You tricked me!" Valtaya exclaimed, almost forgetting her restraints as she tried to stand and rush the wizard. The young druid's memory was hazy past her acceptance of the wizard's apparent kindness in the cave, but she knew enough that the wizard had betrayed her confidence and drugged her. Even now the drug's effects lingered, providing her with a dull ache in her head and faint nausea. Alone now and away from the others, Fychan seemed almost contrite.

"I had to," the wizard said quietly, glancing over his shoulder. "I do not wish to hurt you, but the others wanted information. They wanted to beat it out of you. I convinced them that the drug would be a better way."

Valtaya opened her mouth to spit out a retort, but the wizard's apology seemed almost sincere. The young druid paused for a long moment, trying to force herself to remember that the drow were manipulative, self serving, and utterly evil, but the wizard seemed too honest to be lumped into that category.

"You're going to drug me again," Valtaya guessed, studying the drow's face for any kind of reaction.

"You already told them what they wanted, Valtaya," Fychan explained, taking the waterskin from his robes. Valtaya shifted nervously at that, praying that she had not revealed too much information about her home during her coerced conversation. While she could recall nothing overtly damaging during her drug induced conversation, her memory of the interrogation was hazy at best. "After all, we know that Oakenbough sits on the River Embléz, to the east," Fychan said. "We know where King Setanta and your father live. What more do we really need to find out?"

Valtaya froze, uncertain how to react. She had indeed given away far too much, but tried with all her might to keep her shock and horror from her face. If she made no noticeable reaction, perhaps Fychan would think that she had lied…

"You are pale, Valtaya," Fychan observed. "Your ordeal has sapped your strength. We have given you no food. At least you will have some water, to keep up your strength." Fychan paused theatrically, then gestured to the armored females gathering up their entourage. "After all, you will very soon have to face Talaith and Rhonwen."

Valtaya started to lean forward, almost ready to accept the water, but suddenly stopped herself. It was a trick. It had to be. Valtaya straightened herself as much as she could and turned away, refusing to take the water.

"No water," the druid said, trying to sound defiant.

"If that is what you want," Fychan said, shrugging in resignation. The wizard replaced the waterskin in the folds of his robes, and for a long moment the two lapsed into silence. Finally, Valtaya looked back to Fychan, who was studying something in the darkness.

"Why are you doing this?" the druid asked. Fychan hesitated, his eyes lingering on the charred trees, but then turned to her and shrugged.

"One does not question a matron mother's will," the wizard replied, most of his attention elsewhere.

"But how can you just kill and destroy like this?" Valtaya demanded. Fychan chuckled lightly as he finally gave her his full attention.

"I sometimes wonder how it is that you faeries have survived since we went below ground," the wizard said. "Your mindset is just… bizarre. How can you not kill and destroy? How is it that you have never been destroyed yourselves? The strong survive, Valtaya."

"You don't have to burn down forests to show strength," Valtaya countered. Fychan turned back to her, his amiable mood darkening quickly with her words. "You don't have to kill everyone you come across. That's not how it should be."

"You are a fool, Valtaya," Fychan said. "You have justified to me every condemnation of the faeries that I have ever heard. You are weak and a fool."

Valtaya's mouth dropped open at the words, unable to comprehend the wizard's horrible philosophy. Fychan lingered for only a moment longer, his face drawn up in a hateful snarl, then he spat on the ground in front of her and turned on his heel.

* * *

He wanted to breathe out a sigh of relief, but he was afraid one of Valtaya's captors would hear him.

Fife moved cautiously through the remains of the underbrush, intentionally covered with ash to help him blend into his blackened surroundings. The ranger ducked between the trees with an arrow on his bowstring, his mind still reeling with the impact of his discovery. When he had first seen them emerge from the shimmering portal just after night had fallen, Fife had hardly been able to believe his eyes; four drow, four demons from the stories his parents had told him as a child, four things that were not supposed to exist, had crossed back into argent from their daytime shelter, accompanied by an entourage of more than a half dozen dwarf sized skeletons, four more of the spidery monsters, and a bound, ash covered Valtaya. Even now the ranger prayed that his eyes were deceiving him, or that somehow a group of goblins or orcs had managed to change their shapes, but the truth was undeniable. The drow were real, and now they were burning down Argent.

Fife knew that he had to reach Oakenbough and warn the king, but for now he had a more direct goal. For the moment, the drow had moved away from Valtaya, leaving her relatively alone on one corner of their camp. The dwarven skeletons that had carried her out of the portal were for the moment aiding the chain mail clad drow females, while the ettercaps had begun to scurry off into the forest. If he was to free Valtaya at all, now would have to be the time to do so.

Fife shouldered his bow and dropped to his stomach, carefully inching his way through the ashes and burned briars towards Valtaya. For the moment the druid seemed oblivious to his presence; Fife guessed that she was still watching the wizard that had been talking with her only a moment ago. That wizard, and the other male drow, were both engaged in a conversation of their own now, but the ranger made certain to keep an eye on the wizard that had apparently almost spotted him.

The wizard turned back one more time. Fife froze where he was, lying absolutely still on the ground as he practically stared into the drow's eyes. For an agonizingly long time the dark elf watched the darkness. Fife slowly tried to gather his legs beneath him, ready to jump to his feet and sprint if need be, but finally the drow turned back to his companion. This time Fife had to exhale.

Valtaya suddenly stiffened. Thankfully, the young druid had the presence of mind not to turn back to him, but as he inched forward a little further he could see her trying to glance surreptitiously over her shoulder.

"Is someone there?" she whispered. Fife crawled the last few feet to her.

"Try not to give me away," the ranger said quietly.

"Fife?" Valtaya asked, keeping her voice low.

"Yes," the ranger answered. "Now just sit there and pretend I'm not here. That wizard you were talking to has almost spotted me twice already."

"Okay," Valtaya said, slumping a bit again. Fife took out his dagger and turned to cut her free, but stopped as he considered the restraints the drow had used. Instead of rope of even chain manacles, the druid was bound by sticky webbing that covered her hands and feet completely. For a second the ranger tried to figure out how to start, but then just poked into the webbing with his dagger to start cutting.

He had only just started when he found his dagger stuck fast to the webbing, as well. Fife tried to yank his blade free, but the dagger had been completely trapped by the webbing.

"Mother's grace," the ranger grumbled, shaking his head in disbelief.

"What's wrong?" Valtaya whispered nervously, glancing again over her shoulder.

"Um, the dagger's stuck," Fife answered. "Give me a moment while I think of something else."

"They… when I was trapped in their web, they poured brandy over me," Valtaya said. "That dissolved the webs before. Maybe it'll work here?"

"Well, do you have any brandy on you?" Fife inquired.

"No," Valtaya answered. "I… sort of hoped you would."

"What a pair we make," Fife said. The comment made Valtaya stifle a giggle, but the druid suddenly stiffened again.

"Fife? Um, hurry?" she whispered. The ranger could only guess that the robe wearing drow had turned back to the druid.

"Okay, new plan," Fife said, pulling his short sword from its scabbard. "Try to move your hands and feet as much as possible, and I'll slice the webs with one shot."

"He's coming," Valtaya said urgently. "Just get out of here!"

"Do what I tell you!" Fife snapped, louder than he should have. Valtaya gasped, but she complied with the ranger's hasty order. Fife jumped to one knee, seeing the wizard already halfway through a spell even as the ranger brought his sword down on the webbing.

Fife's sword ripped through the bonds like he had planned, but in the same instant four magic missiles slammed into the ranger. Fife staggered back a step with the impact, but before he could hit the ground Valtaya jumped to her feet and somehow managed to steady him. Seeing that his spell had not finished the ranger, the drow was already shouting an alarm to his companions.

"Are you all right?" Valtaya asked urgently, trying to hold up the ranger.

"Let's get out of here," Fife directed quickly, seeing the other dark elves responding to their comrade's shouts. One of the females had drawn a long, serrated sword and was rushing forward, but the other was already into a spell. Without another thought the ranger grabbed Valtaya by the arm and dragged her into the darkness with him, escaping only a moment before he heard the baying of a shadow mastiff behind them.

Fife hastily dragged his bow off of his shoulder as the two elves sprinted through the charred trees, praying that it would not come down to combat. With four drow and an assortment of minions, Fife had no doubt in his mind that he and Valtaya would stand no chance against their foes. Already, though, the shadow mastiff was gaining on the pair, and the ranger was starting to see shapes on the edges of his keen vision to the south. He had no idea how the drow could possibly run so quickly, but the ranger was beginning to feel a trap closing around him. Valtaya, already panicky from the shadow mastiff's mystical baying, began to turn north, but Fife suddenly realized the herding tactic for what it was.

"South! Run south!" Fife ordered, keeping hold of the druid's arm. Valtaya fought him for a brief moment, but then turned and raced for all she was worth. Fife grabbed an arrow from his quiver and nocked it on the run, ready for anything that would come in front of him.

A drow in blackened leather suddenly appeared in front of him, drawing a pair of short swords and racing forward with superhuman speed. Fife only managed to fire one arrow before the drow reached him, but his missile hit its mark and thudded into the dark elf's shoulder only a second before he took a swipe at the ranger. Fife wasted no time trying to draw his own swords, instead simply lowering his shoulder and charging right into his opponent. Ranger and drow crashed into each other with a jarring impact, but Fife's greater weight won out. The dark elf's strikes went wide as Fife rammed through him, and the drow cried out in pain as the arrow in his shoulder was driven even deeper with the attack. Thinking he had cleared the way, Fife continued forward, racing at full speed into the forest.

A shadowy duplicate of the drow suddenly hit him from the side, raking into his chest with an icy sword of shadow. While it left no wound, the ranger felt a chill run through his entire body, sapping his strength and nearly causing him to stumble. Valtaya nearly bowled over the ranger from behind, but she managed to keep from knocking him down and instead propelled him past the shadow. Reeling from the icy shock and ready to fall from his wounds, Fife nonetheless sprinted onward, Valtaya only a step behind.

They ran for what seemed like forever, turning west as they heard pursuit behind them, and then turning north as Fife tried to circle around his foes. The initial speed that the drow had used to overtake them must have been magical, for as time wore on the dark elves' pursuit fell behind. Still the ranger kept running, until the pair had finally reached a Y shaped junction of three small brooks. Finally, gasping for breath, the ranger dropped to one knee. Valtaya stumbled to the ground behind him, wheezing and holding her side.

"I… think we… managed… to lose them," Fife panted, turning back to his companion. Valtaya nodded in wordless agreement, unable to find the breath to even speak. Wiping the sweat streaming down his face with one filthy hand, Fife glanced around him to take stock of the situation. While they had escaped the drow for the moment, the dark elves were still between them and Oakenbough. While there might be a few nomadic elven bands to the west, living on the very fringes of Argent's territory, the ranger had to get back to the elven capitol for help.

"Mother's grace," Valtaya said, finally regaining her breath and looking at her burned companion. "Are… are you okay, Fife?"

"I'll live, for the moment," Fife replied, looking over the blisters on his left side again. They were certainly painful, but he could wait at least until the druid rested for her healing spells. For the time being, Fife was far more interested in trying to find a way back to the east. The repercussions of real, living drow in their own forest would be monumental, and the threat that they posed had to be addressed immediately. A few scars and injuries along the way were trivial compared to the danger of surface elves' supposedly mythical cousins.

Scuffling behind him caught his attention. Fife turned back to Valtaya to see the young druid wiping her hands against one of the burned trees, trying to remove the film of webbing from her fingers. While she had been free enough to run, the webs still covered her hands like mittens, and despite her best efforts she seemed to be unable to do anything other than collect pieces of charcoal on the sticky strands.

"I can't get this stuff off of me," the druid said in frustration, turning to her rescuer. Fife stood up and walked back to her. "I can't cast any spells with my fingers stuck together like this!"

"Well, I guess we can try to burn it off," Fife suggested in a serious tone, examining the druid's hands for a moment. Valtaya looked up in shock at the ranger's comment, until Fife could no longer hold in his smile.

"Seriously," Valtaya said, though she could not help but laugh as well. Fife let out a last chuckle before he reached behind him and drew a dagger from his belt.

"Let's try not to lose this one," the ranger said, holding the blade up for a second.

"I don't think we lost the first one," Valtaya said with a bit of a giggle, pointing to her feet. Fife's first dagger was still stuck to her left ankle, sticking out of the ashes and dirt that had clung the webs on her boots. Fife shook his head and knelt down, tugging at the blade but unable to pull it free.

"I think you'd better sit down for a moment, before I end up pulling you off your feet," the ranger suggested. Valtaya nodded and lowered herself to the ground. Fife examined the trapped blade for a moment, then ripped it straight up through the webbing, finally tearing it free.

"Very nice," Valtaya said with a smirk. "Now, my hands?"

"Right, the hands," Fife said. Valtaya held her hands out in front of her, but Fife could barely see where each finger began and ended through the webs. Fife shook his head in frustration. "Well, just scream if I cut you, I guess," the ranger said with a shrug.

"That's comforting," Valtaya teased. Fife gave the druid a smile, then carefully went to work cutting the remains of the web away from her fingers. Between the web's toughness and the ranger's care not to cut his companion, Fife could see that it would be no easy task.

"This is going to be a long night," the ranger said with a sigh.

* * *

"We are taking too much time. The sun will be rising soon."

"The mastiff is having a hard time keeping the trail," Cadwared explained, turning back to Talaith as the priestess paced behind him. Talaith's magically summoned shadow mastiff continued to sniff at the blackened ground, trying to pick up the spoor of the two surface elves again. Talaith knew enough about the faerie devotees of the Mother to know that a druid was impossible to track by almost any means, but she had hoped that her mastiff would be able to find and keep the male faerie's scent with little difficulty.

"We don't have time for this," Talaith said, glancing to the sky again. The sun, that horrible ball of flame that bathed the surface world in its blinding light, was an hour at most from rising. "Pick up the trail again and find them!"

"I'm doing what I can," Cadwared grumbled, kneeling and studying the ashen ground again. The mastiff growled slightly, and started off to the north once more. "This is their territory, not ours. And the female does not seem to leave tracks behind her."

"Then track the male," Rhonwen snarled, her hand drifting down to her snake headed whip again. Talaith steadied her handmaiden, all too aware that punishment would have to wait until the faeries were found and captured. "Just recover the sacrifice."

"We have more pressing concerns than mere sacrifice, sister," Fychan put in, following along behind the others. Rhonwen whirled on the insolent make, but Fychan continued before she could open her mouth. "Two faeries have now seen us, and can return to inform their leaders of our presence if we do not find them."

"A trifling concern, at best," Rhonwen huffed, still offended by the possibility that anything could be of secondary importance to a sacrifice for the Spider Queen. While Talaith could not fully stomach the secondary importance of devotions to Lolth, the noble realized the importance of her brother's words. "A dozen faeries or more have already fallen to our power. They are weak in both thought and deed."

"Ah, but we had the element of surprise before," Fychan countered smoothly. Talaith could not help but agree with her brother; the old druid they had killed before capturing the faerie Valtaya had been a powerful caster, and the priestess had considered it as much a factor of luck and the Spider Queen's favor that he had been immolated so quickly in the flame strikes and fireballs. "And two managed to not only escape us, but wound Cadwared and disappear almost entirely."

"Males are naturally incompetent," Talaith put in, cutting Rhonwen off before she could launch a furious retort at the wizard. Cadwared snorted at the indirect insult to his abilities, but wisely kept his mouth shut. "And if you are finished, Fychan," Talaith added angrily, unhappy with her brother's almost sacrilegious comments to her own handmaiden, "perhaps you can stop babbling endlessly and find the faeries that you lost."

"Something ahead!" Cadwared suddenly whispered, dropping into a crouch and drawing his swords. The other drow did likewise, and as they fell into silence Talaith could easily hear what had caught her scout's attention. Somewhere ahead, several figures were moving about in the darkness.

"Too loud to be elves," Fychan whispered, moving slowly alongside his sister. Talaith nodded, her eyes on the indistinct forms ahead of her. Cadwared was already slipping forward into the shadows, while the rest of the drow moved forward far enough to see the figures clearly.

"What are they?" Rhonwen asked quietly as she examined the beings ahead. Talaith shrugged, and turned a questioning glance to her brother.

"Too large and too hairy to be elves," Fychan observed aloud, watching the creatures ahead. There were nine or ten of them, sharing an uneasy camp in the silence of the charred forest. Several were asleep under blankets, while three others were awake and watching the darkness around them intently. "But they aren't large enough to be ogres. I would assume that these are humans."

"Humans," Talaith repeated, absently wiping a few loose strands of hair from her face. "Are they allies of the faeries? Or are they here to take advantage of the fire?"

"That is impossible to know," Fychan answered. "I have not read much of humans, and what I have learned was not specific. They seemed to be both friend and enemy to the faeries. At any rate, they have never seemed to be as dangerous as a faerie, and certainly unworthy of consideration by a drow."

"I say we destroy them," Rhonwen suggested, "and not chance their finding and joining with the faeries."

Talaith considered her handmaiden's advice for a long moment. While it was possible that these humans could prove useful allies, tracking their quarry during the day while the drow rested, the priestess was still unready to trust any surface beings, no matter how potentially useful they might be. And if they were currently friends of the faeries, they could become just one more problem in the future. Her decision made, the priestess turned back to Fychan and nodded.

"Destroy them," Talaith said simply. Fychan smiled, his wand of lightning already in his hand.

"I thought you would never ask, dear sister."


	9. Plans Gone Awry

Suddenly, the author was seized by an uncontrollable fit of sarcasm, and screamed:

"Chaotic evil drow?! What a freakin' concept! How come no one ever thought of this before?!"

* * *

**VIII**

"We'll be able to rest here for a little bit, I think."

"Thank the Mother," Valtaya said, falling to her knees in the middle of a small clearing of ash. The young druid felt so tired that she could barely think, she was covered with ash, sweat, and mud, and her fingers, though free enough to cast, still held some of the remnants of the disintegrating spider webs. Her hair was still matted down and sticky from the brandy that had been poured over her. Fife looked no better than she, covered in the same black grime, and still sported some of the injuries he had initially suffered against the dark elves. But at least they were alive. Slowly Valtaya turned back to her rescuer. "How long do we have?"

"We'll need to rest, at least for a little," Fife said, considering the morning sky. The eastern horizon had already turned a pale blue, signaling the coming dawn, but the fires had created a miasma of smoke that promised to at least partially obscure the coming sun. The ranger rubbed one hand along his chin, smearing ash and sweat into a black mess along his jaw as he considered the morning sky. "The drow won't move during the day, or so we hope," Fife continued, sitting down on a bare rock. "Hopefully, that will give us some time before they can chase us again. If nothing else, I would rather have my wits about me once darkness falls, to make certain I can see them coming this time."

Valtaya nodded in agreement, and the two fell into silence for a short while. For a time Valtaya watched the forest try to brighten around them through the haze of smoke and steam, until she finally turned back to her rescuer. Fife's eyes were half closed as he tried to make the most of their temporary respite, leaning on his bow for support.

"Fife?" the druid started nervously. She hated to bother the ranger, but she could not wait any longer to broach the subject of her interrogation.

"What's wrong?" the ranger asked, sensing her discomfort immediately.

"I… they drugged me, not long after that caught me," Valtaya started. "I… I think I might have told them how to… how to find Oakenbough."

"They… they know where Oakenbough is?" Fife repeated, his fatigue vanishing instantly with the news. Very few allies even knew of the elven capitol's exact location, a testament to the elves' secrecy over the past hundred years. Valtaya watched as the ranger practically jumped to his feet, shouldering his bow. "Valtaya, are you certain?"

"They know that it's east, along the Embléz," Valtaya replied quietly. Fife ran a hand along his newly shortened hair as he tried to think through the shattering information.

"We can't waste any time, then," the ranger decided. "We'll have to move inside of an hour, and start east immediately. We'll work our way back to the fire line, and then cut south until we get around the edge. As long as the drow sleep through the day, we should be able to make it fairly easily."

"But… what about the treants?" Valtaya asked, remembering one of the initial goals of the entire journey. The treants, to the north, would be overrun by the flames without help from the elves. Fife paced for a moment before shaking his head.

"They'll have to make do without us," the ranger said. "Every moment we delay, the drow gain more of an advantage over us. If they do know enough to find Oakenbough, the city must be prepared for an attack or possibly even evacuated."

"Evacuated?" Valtaya repeated, stunned by the news.

"Oakenbough exists because we have never told anyone its location," Fife explained. "Even the Mardanians are uncertain of its location, and although humans are hardly trustworthy, they are the closest thing to allies that we have. If our most hated enemies were to find the city, the king and the court would be in grave danger."

Valtaya simply stared at the ranger for a long moment, barely capable of thought. In only a few days, the druid found her world falling to pieces. The forest fires had devastated her one time home. Druce, Hefydd, Dolan and Keridwyn had all been killed. The drow had shown themselves to be more than just an awful legend. And now, because of her, Oakenbough might have to be abandoned. Druce had told her to prepare herself for the worst, but she had failed. Finally, Valtaya dropped her eyes to the ground, fighting back tears.

"It's my fault," she said quietly. "We're going to lose Oakenbough because I wasn't prepared."

"No one could have been prepared for this," Fife said, lifting her chin gently. "If I had been captured, rather than you, I doubt I would have fared much better against those demons."

"But they know now," Valtaya countered. "They know where Oakenbough is."

"But they haven't told anyone else, and they don't know exactly where it is" Fife said. He paused for a moment, lost in thought, but then continued. "Maybe they won't be able to find the river. Or if we find help, maybe we can stop them before they can return to their home."

"But…other than the treants, who else is out here that can help us?" Valtaya asked.

* * *

He had merely stepped off into the forest for a moment to relieve himself. He had not gone halfway back to the Mardanian border, or disappeared deep into the ruined forest. But in that moment, nine of his friends died. Fire and lightning had torn apart the small camp he and his companions had made, almost before he could even turn around. In a single thunderous moment, nine Mardanian soldiers had died.

Aiken had spent the next hours in hiding. He had watched as four undeniably elven figures entered his destroyed camp, kicking at one or two of the bodies to make certain that they were dead. They were followed by an entourage of bizarre creatures, including dwarven skeletons, disgusting spiderlike creatures, and a huge mastiff that was barely visible against the darkness. For a moment they argued in a language that was certainly not Argent elven, but something that sounded like a perverted form of the language that he could not understand. Then they moved off again, vanishing as swiftly as they had appeared into the night.

Now, as the sun finally cleared the horizon, Aiken stood slowly and returned to what was left of his slain comrades. All through the night, he had hoped that at least one of his comrades might have survived the assault, but with the first lights of dawn fighting through the smog the ranger could see the devastation more clearly. Most of his companions were now little more than charred skeletons and piles of ash, their armor blackened and warped by the intense heat of the fires that had killed them. No one could have survived such a holocaust.

"Pelor's sunny ass," Aiken whispered, stopping for a moment as he looked over the carnage. The ranger hesitated a moment longer, then turned to his own bedroll in the corner of the wreckage. His blankets were burned to cinders and his pack was destroyed, leaving nothing to salvage. His only stroke of luck was that he had been on watch the previous night, and he had been wearing his armor and weapons and carrying his long bow over his shoulder.

A faint groan rose from the opposite side of the camp. Aiken whirled, drawing his swords, but the mysterious elves had not returned. Instead, the groan had come from beneath a fallen, charred tree limb close to where the invaders had first appeared in the night. Aiken moved forward slowly, his weapons still at the ready, but as he got closer he quickly sheathed his swords and rushed the last few yards to the fallen boughs. As he reached the limbs, he dropped to his knees and quickly began to throw the blasted wood out of the way. Beneath the branches, a soot blackened man dressed in long, earth colored robes feebly struggled to free himself from the branches pinning him to the ground,

"Cyril!" Aiken exclaimed, throwing the limbs aside and helping the man to sit up. "Are you all right?"

"I hate this forest," Cyril complained weakly, still needing Aiken's hand to steady him. "What in the Abyss happened?"

"We were attacked," Aiken explained. Cyril turned to him quizzically.

"By what?" the wizard asked, rubbing his head where a large lump had already formed.

"I don't know exactly," Aiken replied. "They looked like elves, but they weren't from Argent."

"Utrecht elves?" Cyril inquired. Aiken shook his head, immediately disregarding that idea. The elves of the coastal magocracy of Utrecht had no interest in their forest dwelling kin, and certainly did not harbor the animosity that would have provoked such a brutal assault. "Well, I don't know any other elves than Utrecht elves and Argent elves."

"There might be other elves somewhere in the world, Cyril," Aiken said, looking over the wizard's injuries. While he sported a large knot where the falling tree branches had hit him and a few superficial burns, Cyril had miraculously come out of the night's horrors relatively unscathed. "Do you think you can walk?"

"Give me a minute to stop the forest from spinning," Cyril said, closing his eyes and putting his face in his hands for a moment. Finally, the wizard opened his eyes again, and nodded slightly. "I'll make it," he decided. "Where do we head?"

"Well, we aren't going to stay here," Aiken said. "We head north again and get back into Mardan. There's nothing we can do to help the elves now."

* * *

"Perhaps we should take a moment to rest."

"Perhaps you should use your magic to find the faeries you let escape," Talaith growled in reply, turning back on Fychan with open disdain. Although the wizard could not see his sister's features clearly through the translucent black silk scarves that the drow wore to protect their eyes from the worst of the morning sun, he could feel her eyes boring into him with hatred. Talaith's shadow mastiff, home in the nighttime shadows, had long since returned to its home plane, leaving Cadwared alone in tracking the fugitive surface elves.

"A priestess' spells are more suited to such a task than mine," Fychan countered smoothly, still indignant with his sister's decision to place the blame for the lost elves squarely on him. Although the statement was a fine line from being overtly defiant and grounds for harsh punishment, the wizard was certain that the circumstances would preclude any form of physical reprimand from Talaith. As if to prove his notion, Talaith stopped Rhonwen before the handmaiden could draw her snake headed whip from her belt.

"You are indeed fortunate that we need you, for the time being at least," the noble growled, leaning in close to Fychan. "When we return to Llyr, do not think that I will forget your insolence here, secondboy."

"Duly noted, dear sister," Fychan said, dropping his head in a genuine display of submission and injecting a clear note of remorse into his voice. "I apologize of my actions. The sun has made me unjustly irritable."

"It has done that to us all," Talaith said after a short moment's pause. Like Valtaya, Fychan could see Talaith struggling to assess the sincerity of her brother, but Talaith was much more difficult to trick than the faerie. The priestess hesitated another second before continuing. "The sooner we find the faeries, the sooner we will be able to rest."

"I cannot track them like this," Cadwared said suddenly, turning to the other three drow. He pointed angrily to the sun as his companions looked to him. "That… that thing is blinding me! I cannot see to track them any further!"

"We need those faeries," Talaith growled, forgetting Fychan in her desire to find her sacrifice. "Find the trail again, no matter what it takes."

"Perhaps we do not need to track them any further," Fychan said suddenly, regaining the priestess' attention.

"What do you mean?" Talaith demanded.

"Those faeries came here to help their allies, the tree things," Fychan said.

"They came here to stop the fire," Rhonwen corrected.

"That is true, but they are allies of the tree things," Fychan reasoned. "There is no other reason why Lolth would request that we destroy them by fire. We have killed other faeries in the past. The tree things must be important to the elves for Lolth to request them destroyed."

"The faeries will forget their tree things to escape us," Rhonwen said. "They will not face us without more of their kind."

"There you are wrong," Fychan countered bluntly. Rhonwen's eyes blazed with rage at the notion of a male correcting her, but the wizard continued quickly. "The faeries will foolishly try to aid their plant companions."

"And if they do not?" Talaith asked. Fychan shrugged.

"We block the south, and the fire blocks their east," the wizard explained. "The west offers them nothing. Only by going north can they even hope to find allies. If nothing else, we will at least finish the task Lolth has set before us."

Talaith paused for a moment, considering Fychan's idea. Standing beside the noble, Rhonwen's jaw tightened, wishing earnestly for an opportunity to scold the pretentious male, but the wizard could already see that his sister realized the value of his plan.

"We will move north, until the sun reaches its highest point," the priestess finally decided. "But if we lose the faeries, dear brother," Talaith growled, her voice growing colder, "you will be the one to take the noble's place."

Talaith had made similar promises many times before, but this time the priestess seemed far too serious. Fychan nodded, fighting to keep his nerves under control in the face of what seemed an all too real threat. Talaith lingered a moment longer, then turned and continued north through the fire blackened forest.

* * *

"Maybe we should head a little farther north?"

"Dead east to the fire line," Fife said, picking his way carefully through the ashes and smoke. For almost an hour they had continued on their journey to raging fire line, and even with the sun fully risen for almost all of that time, the charred trees and blackened forest floor remained shrouded in a pall of smoke and fog that obscured the sun's rays. "We reach the fire line and head south."

"I… we can't leave the treants," Valtaya said, stopping in the middle of a tiny clearing. "We can head north around the fire, rather than south, and at least warn them of the fires."

"If we head north, we lose at least a day to Oakenbough," Fife countered. "I don't want to se the treants killed any more than you do, but Oakenbough's security must take first priority here."

"The drow will cut us off if we go south," Valtaya protested.

"You said they hide during the day in a cave, right?" Fife said. Valtaya nodded reluctantly. "We pass them by during the day, and they'll never realize we cut back behind them."

"If they're tracking us, they will," Valtaya said. "And then they'll be even closer."

"You don't leave tracks," Fife pointed out.

"But you do," Valtaya countered. Warning the treants might have been a risk to the security of Oakenbough, but the druid could not stomach leaving the sentient trees to their fiery doom without even warning them. Fife remained silent for a moment, but before he could find the words to continue the argument a noise from the south caught both their attention.

"Cover," Fife whispered. Valtaya dropped to the ground behind the remains of a tree immediately, trying to focus enough to recall a spell to destroy her hated foes as well as find some kind of useful weapon. Fife slid back behind a fallen, burned tree to her right, ready to fire an arrow as soon as a drow showed its ebon face.

The two figures that appeared were indeed ebon, but from ash rather than skin color. One, dressed in tattered, filthy robes and leaning on a staff, limped badly as he walked, leaving a painfully obvious trail behind him. The other, slightly shorter than the apparent wizard, was still taller than Fife, and not so badly injured as his comrade. Like Fife, he dressed in sturdy, quiet leather armor and carried a bow that looked to be of elven make. What caught the druid's eye almost immediately, however, was their hair, or rather, the hair growing out of their faces. The robed man wore a patch of coal black hair around his mouth, while the shorter one, despite his slightly pointed ears, had allowed a reddish mustache to grow just under his nose. Shaking off her initial curiosity, Valtaya glanced to Fife. The druid had never met a human, as these two seemed to be, before, and did not know how to handle the current situation. Fife, for his part, was cautiously drawing an arrow, but the ranger would not glance in Valtaya's direction.

The apparent wizard dropped to his knee then, speaking loudly in a strange, somewhat guttural language that she could only assume was Mardanian. The man's companion let out an exasperated smirk before answering the wizard, though his concentration was set far more firmly on the blackened trees around him. Again Valtaya glanced to Fife. Nearly invisible in the clump of burned out saplings he had chosen for cover, the ranger was slowly lifting his bow, an arrow already on his bowstring. Valtaya frantically tried to get the ranger's attention, fearing that he was about to attack complete innocents, but the only one who seemed to notice her movement was the human with slightly pointed ears. The auburn haired archer turned quickly, his bow coming up quickly and an arrow appearing on his string almost as if by magic. Valtaya leaped out of cover before the man could fire, throwing her hands up in a gesture of peace.

"We mean no harm!" the druid exclaimed, praying that the archer knew her language. The man froze for a moment, his bowstring taut and the arrow aimed at Valtaya's heart. The robed human jumped to his feet and fumbled for something on his belt, but Fife appeared at that moment, his bow trained on the apparent wizard. For a long moment, all four froze in place, no one willing to make the first move. With his eyes still on the Fife the robed human said something to his companion in Mardanian, but the archer shook his head without looking back to his companion. Finally, the man lowered his bow slightly.

"Argent elves," the auburn haired man said. Although his words were accented by the guttural human tongue, he seemed to be at least partially fluent in the elven language.

"We are," Valtaya agreed, her eyes still watching the broad bladed arrow pointed directly at her. "Please, lower your weapons. We mean you no harm."

"We were attacked by elves during the night," the archer said. "Eight men died by elven hands."

"They are drow," Valtaya informed the human. The archer's grayish blue eyes widened at the word. Fife, on the corner of Valtaya's vision, seemed almost angry with her revelation.

"Drow are a myth," the human said. The wizard, still too concerned with the direction of Fife's arrow, seemed not to understand the gravity of the conversation, but the archer seemed to know the elven legends thoroughly.

"They exist," Valtaya said simply. "We too have lost friends to the drow's spells and blades. Please, we are allies. We need not treat each other like enemies."

The human hesitated a moment longer, looking meaningfully to Fife's taut bowstring. Finally, however, the archer lowered his bow, and replaced his arrow in his quiver. Without any blatant threat, Fife reluctantly removed his own arrow, and turned to the human bowman.

"Who are you?" the ranger demanded curtly. "And what are you doing in Argent?"

"I am Aiken, of His Majesty's Royal Wardens," the archer said. "My companion is Cyril, a member of the Royal Academy of Sorcery."

"Mardanians," Fife concluded. Aiken nodded his affirmation. "What are you doing in Argent?"

"Over two weeks ago we noticed a large fire burning through your northwest boundaries," Aiken explained. "Lord Oswalt, in command of the southern frontier, dispatched a unit to investigate the matter, in case Trzebin was attempting a new attack against us or our elven allies. Out of ten, we are all that remain."

"We don't want you in our forest, half breed," Fife said sternly, speaking before Valtaya could find a suitable reply of thanks for the humans' attempted aid. The druid looked back to Aiken, finally understanding the combination of human and elven features in the Mardanian. Although she did not share Fife's apparent disdain for such a creature, Valtaya could only wonder what could bring an elf into any sort of relationship with such shortlived, aggressive creatures as humans.

"If you do not wish our help, we will leave," the Aiken said, speaking before the druid could find her voice. "We have no problem with letting your forest burn from here to the sea, if this is how you treat your allies."

"Aiken, a moment please," Valtaya said quickly, trying to placate the Mardanians in the wake of Fife's rude treatment. "Fife is… tired from our journey and under admittedly justified stress after our discoveries here. We are in dire need of help, and we would appreciate any sort of aid that you can give us."

Aiken nodded, casting a last, cold glance to Fife. The elven ranger turned a furious glare on his companion, but for the moment Valtaya was unwilling to let Fife's bias against humans drive away the only allies she could find the in the blasted forest.

"Very well," the half elf said. "Cyril, although he knows some of the elven language, is by no means fluent in it. There will be times when I will have to translate for him."

"I will try to understand," Cyril said in halting, horribly accented Argent. Cyril smiled slightly, then turned to Aiken and said something in Mardanian. Fife suddenly grew furious at the remark, but Aiken could barely keep himself from bursting into laughter.

"What did he say?" Valtaya inquired. Aiken tried to put on a straight face as he turned back to the druid.

"Um, he said that he didn't think elves could get dirty," the half elf explained hesitantly. Valtaya smiled at the remark, taking the good natured jest for what it was as she looked down at her filthy clothing.

"We wanted you to feel at home," Valtaya quipped. Aiken smiled at the light return, but Fife simply turned away and stared off into the forest. Aiken cast a curious glance to the older elf before turning back to the druid.

"Do you have any plans on how to deal with the drow?" the half elf inquired. "We don't know what their goals are, if any. All I can really say is that they are moving to the north."

"Four of us stand little chance against those drow," Fife said. "Especially when only two are elves."

"Four of us may not," Valtaya said, ignoring Fife's remark for the moment as a plan formed in her mind. "But four of us and six treants have a much better chance."


	10. Race to the Grove

**IX**

"We should reach the treants in an hour, maybe less."

"The fires are getting closer," Valtaya said quietly, looking to the north as she joined Fife ahead of the two Mardanians. Aiken could move almost as swiftly and silently as the two elves, no doubt due to his elven blood, but Cyril seemed ill suited for a journey over even a scorched, burned out forest. Fife had made no attempt to wait for the human, and during the long, awkward silence of the day the gap between the elves and the humans had steadily widened. Now, with the sun rapidly setting behind the western horizon, almost twenty yards separated the elves from the Mardanians. "Perhaps we should wait for them."

"I'd prefer not to," Fife grumbled, closing his eyes as he did every time the druid mentioned their human companions. With Aiken and Cyril out of earshot, Valtaya turned to her elven partner.

"Why won't you trust them?" the druid asked, frustrated with Fife's unrelenting bias. Fife looked back to the humans for a moment, watching as Aiken lingered for a moment while Cyril fought his way through the charred undergrowth.

"This… this is an elven matter," the ranger finally said. "It should have been handled by elves, and elves alone."

"But, we can't do this alone," Valtaya countered, not quite comprehending the ranger's tone. Fife's words seemed completely racist, but there was a resignation in his voice that seemed out of place. "We need allies, today more than ever."

Fife hesitated for a long moment, carefully mulling over his words before he spoke. Again the ranger judged the distance to the Mardanians before speaking.

"Earlier I told you about Oakenbough's secrecy," Fife finally began. "As you grow older, Valtaya, you'll come to understand more and more that Argent's survival depends on the mystery and myths that the other races hold about us. To our south, Tourant grows stronger every day, and as they continually expand they try to log Argent itself. To our west, Herzog Krysztof has turned what was once a collection of squabbling, inbred goblin and orc tribes into a war machine the likes of which no one has ever seen. Even to our north, the Mardanians continue to probe our defenses, despite overtures of alliance. Our only true kin, the elves that now reside in Utrecht, have forgotten the Mother and the old ways, and now they are little more than the humans they coexist with. The appearance of drow on the surface chips away at the illusions of power and mystery that hold our enemies at bay. That we would need humans to help us, against a foe that we were supposed to have destroyed… do you understand?"

"I… sort of," Valtaya answered. While the druid had long been aware of the general mindset of her nation, she had never realized just how reclusive and wary Argent had become. Fife's words finally crystallized in the druid the growing paranoia of the elven nation, locked between twin human kingdoms and the constant threat of the goblin war machine. The elven leaders were terrified of allowing even the faintest hint of weakness show to the outside world, for fear that their nation would be instantly invaded and destroyed. Valtaya looked again to Cyril, then to Aiken. Was the half elven ranger the eventual evolution of her people? Mixed blood and only a partial understanding of the elven ways?

"This is the way it has to be," Fife said, pushing forward through the burned forest again. Valtaya watched the ranger as he walked ahead. "It's not the way I want it, but it there is no other way."

"There has to be another way," Valtaya whispered, too quietly for Fife to hear. Although she feared for Argent's way of life, such paranoia and fear of the outside world could not be the only way to exist.

* * *

"How much longer?"

"It should not be long now," Fychan said quietly, studying the smoking forest around him. While the fire line to their east had been in sight for almost the entire day, a dull, angry glow now lit the north as the last rays of the brutal sun disappeared behind the distant western mountains. "Although the fires have slowed since our meeting with the faeries, the tree things should not be more than a mile north of the fire line now."

"Lolth be praised," Cadwared grumbled, still taking the lead and studying the ground for any tracks. Talaith looked to the commoner as he spoke.

"Any sign of the faeries?" the priestess asked.

"None," Cadwared replied. "But if I were them I would not travel so close to the fire line."

"If they traveled west, it will cost them time," Fychan observed. "We will be able to beat them to the tree things."

"And then spark another fire?" Rhonwen inquired, turning to Talaith.

"It will be better to fight them separately," Talaith decided, nodding slightly. While the priestess knew very little of the tree things that Lolth wanted destroyed, some of the earliest drow legends, from their forgotten times on the surface, talked of tree beings called treants, immensely strong beings who could supposedly animate entire forests to fight for them. Killing the treants would call for a large number of fire spells. If the treants were indeed as powerful as the legends indicated, it would be better to remove them long before the faeries could join forces with them. "We kill the tree things before the faeries can warn them."

"We'll need a way through the flames," Fychan observed, taking a few steps to the north and watching the distant flames eat through the fresh vegetation. Talaith followed his line of sight to the fire line, noting how much the blaze had dimmed since they had been forced to focus their attention on the escaped faeries.

"That is up to you to find, brother," Talaith said, turning to the wizard. Fychan considered the flames for a moment, then sighed.

"An ice storm will not be subtle," Fychan explained. "If they are on the other side of the line, they will know we are coming."

"A risk we have to take," Talaith decided. "Create the hole."

"As you wish," Fychan said with a faint nod. The wizard took a scroll case from the folds of his robe and unfurled a sheet of parchment. With a quick incantation, a miniature storm of sleet and freezing rain fell on the fire line in front of them, rapidly dousing the flames and providing the drow with a means to cross the line. Fychan cut the spell short as the flames died down, leaving a smoking hole in the fire line to expose the verdant, rapidly darkening forest beyond it.

"Cadwared," Talaith said, pointing to the hole. Cadwared nodded quickly and stole ahead through the opening, disappearing into the undergrowth on the other side of the hole. After a moment the warrior reappeared, signaling the others forward. Talaith and Rhonwen started forward quickly, but Fychan lagged behind a moment as the wizard watched the smoking dead zone behind them. The priestess considered snapping an order to her brother to hurry along, but decided against it in her rush to find the tree things and possibly the surface elves.

"I see no faeries," Cadwared reported as the two priestesses joined him. "I see no tree things either, but I am not sure that I would recognize one if it was right next to me."

"Fychan!" Rhonwen whispered harshly, taking notice of the wizard's tardiness. Fychan hesitated a moment longer, but then turned and hurried through the smoking hole to join his companions. "Where are the tree things?"

"We should forget the tree things for now," Fychan said simply. Rhonwen opened her mouth to chastise the brazen male, But Talaith held up her hand as she noticed an anxious, almost eager set to her brother's features. In only a heartbeat the noble guessed her sibling's knowledge.

"The faeries are here!" Talaith breathed out. Fychan nodded eagerly in wordless agreement.

* * *

"I get the feeling they don't like us."

"You're just moving too slow for them, Cyril," Aiken said, turning a smile back to the wizard as Cyril struggled to keep pace with the others. Although Aiken had no problem managing the elves' quick, steady pace through the blackened forest, Cyril was not faring well in the skeletal underbrush and the uneven terrain. "After all, it's their forest that's burning."

"You can stop patronizing me now, Aiken," Cyril said with a smirk, looking past the warden to the elves. While the younger one, Valtaya, continued to glance over her shoulder with concern at the widening gap, Fife, the ranger, pushed ahead without paying heed to the humans' slower pace. "Maybe the girl doesn't mind having us along, but her partner wants nothing to do with us at all."

"Well, maybe they are a bit… uncomfortable around us," Aiken conceded, trying not to wholly agree with Cyril's assessment. The wizard clambered over a last fallen tree, then stopped with his hands on his knees as he tried to rest for a moment. "How are you feeling?" Aiken asked with a touch of concern.

"Like I've been raked over the coals," Cyril answered with a grin, looking up as he wiped some of the sweat from his grimy brow. "I don't suppose you could ask them to stop for a moment, could you?"

"I could try," Aiken answered, turning to the two elves. Surprisingly enough, the pair had already come to a halt, although Fife seemed furious with the delay. Valtaya said something to the ranger with a worried, look, then turned and hurried back to the two humans. "I don't thin it would be possible to take a moment to rest, would it?" Aiken inquired in elven as Valtaya reached him.

"We stopped for that reason," the druid said. "Is your friend well?"

"Wizards aren't exactly made for this kind of trek," Aiken explained with a bit of a smirk. Cyril seemed to pick up on at least part of his statement, showing a sardonic smirk as he sat back on the fallen tree he had crossed a minute ago. "Your care to his wounds earlier, however, was nothing short of excellent."

"I don't like to see people suffer," Valtaya said. "Not even humans."

"Your partner seems less concerned with us than you do," Aiken pointed out, nodding to Fife. Valtaya glanced over her shoulder to the ranger for a moment before dropping her eyes to the ground.

"He does not mean to be so rude," the druid said awkwardly.

"Yes he does," Aiken countered. Valtaya looked up, showing a hint of indignance. "I do not blame him though," the warden continued, watching his elven counterpart. "I don't hold any illusions about the way our two nations look at each other. In fact, Fife and I may have even fought each other in the past. Not every meeting between wardens and elves has ended peacefully."

"But we are supposed to be allies," Valtaya protested. "Why do we fight each other?"

"Greed, distrust, inability to compromise… there's probably hundreds of reasons," Aiken answered. "Who knows, maybe if the elves weren't so aloof, and if the humans less eager to log everything… but then again, we're not nobles. Until someone at the top fixes things, people like us on the bottom keep getting kicked."

"Oh," Valtaya said, lost in her own thoughts. Aiken watched her for a moment, uncertain if something he said had indirectly offended the young elf. "Maybe… maybe someone at the top will try to fix things," the druid said, though she only seemed to be half speaking to the warden.

"Maybe," Aiken agreed, keeping the skepticism out of his voice. The half elf paused for a moment. "Where are the treants?"

"We should almost be there," Valtaya replied, quickly pushing her thoughts to the side as she refocused on the conversation. "Fife knows the area better than I do. He says we're very close."

"Very close to the fire line, too," Aiken observed, seeing the dim glow of the fires ahead. "I hope the blaze hasn't run them over already."

"So do I," Valtaya agreed. Aiken nodded, and glanced back to the Cyril.

"Are you ready, wizard?" the warden asked, speaking slowly and deliberately in Argent. Cyril was no master of the Argent tongue, but the mage had asked Aiken specifically to use the language whenever possible to help him learn it.

"Ready," Cyril answered, standing up. Aiken smiled slightly at the wizard's tenuous grip of the elven language.

"You'll learn yet," the warden continued in Argent. Cyril nodded with a bit of a grin.

"I… groan?" Cyril said uncertainly. Valtaya giggled at the wizard's attempt. "Not right?" Cyril asked.

"Not right," Aiken confirmed, smiling a bit himself. "Try, not groan."

"I try," Cyril corrected. Then the wizard switched back to Mardanian. "Not exactly an easy language to learn," he decided. Aiken nodded with a smile.

"She'd probably say the same thing about Mardanian if we taught it to her," the warden remarked. Cyril shrugged with a bit of a smile, but his good humor faded away Fife returned to the group.

"We have to cross the fire line," the ranger stated simply. "There appears to be an opening, a spot where the fire burned down, ahead of us and slightly east of here. We can cross there."

"An opening?" Aiken repeated, looking ahead. In the distance, where the fire still raged, the warden could see a small area where the glow of the flames seemed to be less intense. Fife nodded.

"Aiken and I will go first," Fife said. "Valtaya, Cyril, you wait here for a moment."

"But, Fife, shouldn't we stay together?" Valtaya asked.

"I want to make certain the way is clear," the ranger explained. "Let's go, Aiken."

"Wait here for us," Aiken said, speaking in Mardanian to make sure Cyril understood. The wizard nodded. Without another word the two rangers stole ahead through the smoking remains of the forest, edging closer to the flames. Finally, as they closed to within fifty yards of the opening in the fire line, Fife motioned for the half elf to stop.

"Looks like we can get through," Aiken said quietly, his eyes on the opening. Fife shook his head.

"You don't see it," the ranger concluded. Aiken stared at the hole for a long moment. While it seemed curious that the opening had even appeared in the first place, the warden at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. But as he looked, he began to notice that the opening threw off heavy amounts of steam, much like when water or snow was used to smother a camp fire…

"It's a trap," Aiken concluded. The warden silently thanked Pelor that the elf had such keen vision; he and Cyril would have gone blindly through the hole and into the waiting hands of the drow. Fife nodded.

"Someone just extinguished that section," the elf confirmed. "We need to find another way through."

"Let's get back to the others," Aiken said quietly, his eyes on the hole as he tried to locate a potential ambush. Fife nodded wordlessly, and swiftly the two rangers dropped back to Valtaya and Cyril.

"Is everything all right?" the druid asked nervously.

"The drow are probably waiting for us on the other side," Fife said. Aiken translated to Cyril as the elf spoke. "We need to find another way through."

"But it's a solid wall of fire as far as we can see," Valtaya observed.

"If they're on the other side, they'll kill us," Fife said. Again Aiken repeated the elf in Mardanian.

"Then let them," Cyril suddenly said. Fife turned a shocked expression on the human wizard, and even Aiken had no idea how to reaction to his partner's suggestion.

"What are you talking about?" the elf demanded. Cyril simply smiled as he turned to Aiken.

"I have a plan," the wizard said simply, his smile growing even broader.


	11. End Game

**X**

"Where are they?"

"Be patient," Fychan whispered, his eyes not leaving the steaming opening in the fire line as he spoke. The wizard could feel Rhonwen's furious eyes on his back for his admonishment, but was far too intent on finishing his assigned task to worry about the handmaiden's anger.

"They should have come through by now," Rhonwen huffed, keeping her voice low.

"They couldn't know we're here," Cadwared said quietly, his voice edged with concern. Only a few feet away from Fychan, the warrior was nonetheless nearly invisible in the darkness and the thick foliage. If any of the drow had been spotted, it had certainly not been the stealthy commoner.

"Silence, all of you," Talaith ordered harshly. The others needed no further prompting. Fychan lapsed back into watchful silence as he studied the blackened forest visible through the hole in the fire wall. The faeries could not have seen him, the wizard decided. The surface elves may have had keen vision even in the relative "darkness" of their moon, but they were still no match for the cunning and stealth of the drow.

Fychan's thoughts appeared to be proven true only a moment later. Slowly appearing through the steam and smoke, Valtaya's last faerie ally carefully edged his way through the darkness, an arrow on his bowstring as his eyes searched every direction for any signs of trouble. The surface elf seemed to look directly at the wizard for a long moment, but thankfully he seemed not to notice any of the drow in the darkness. After a long hesitation the faerie finally moved forward, stepping silently into the underbrush and nearly disappearing among the leaves. Valtaya appeared a moment later, looking nervous as she glanced rapidly through the trees. Fychan smiled as he saw her, slowly drawing his wand of lightning from his belt. Behind him Talaith shifted ever so slightly, and patted her brother on his shoulder.

Fychan leapt up and pointed his wand quickly, shouting a single command word as he targeted Valtaya's companion. Instantly a bolt of lightning ripped through the forest, striking the faerie squarely before he could react. The archer stumbled back under the force of the blow, but before he could recover Rhonwen cast a spell of her own and a towering pillar of dazzling orange and red flames engulfed the faerie. Valtaya screamed in horror as she tried to rush to her companion's aid, but the moment she hesitated was far too long. Cadwared jumped up and loosed a slim, short javelin, striking the young noble in the shoulder before she could react. Cadwared's nonlethal throw was exactly what the warrior had aimed for; within moments, Valtaya wobbled and fell, sinking into a deep, comatose slumber from the effects of the poison smeared on the javelin's pointed tip. As the faerie collapsed to the ground, an almost palpable silence fell over the forest, broken only by the fire's constant crackling.

"Well done," Talaith finally said, her eyes still on the two faeries. The archer's body had been almost completely incinerated, while Valtaya was intact but for her shoulder wound. Fychan nodded in agreement, but something nagged at the back of the wizard's mind. Although the faeries had acted just as he had suspected, Fychan still almost felt that the coup had been too easy. The faeries should have at least put up some sort of fight, at least fired an errant arrow or cast a desperate spell.

"Lolth has smiled on us this night," Rhonwen said, giving thanks to the Spider Queen. The handmaiden turned to her ettercaps. "Fetch the female."

The two spider things lurched forward to obey their mistress' command, quickly covering the short distance to the downed faeries. Eager to see Valtaya again, Cadwared also stood, but stopped short of joining Rhonwen's arachnid servants as they gathered the bodies. As the two ettercaps reached the bodies and nothing attacked them, Fychan finally began to relax. The wizard began to stand as he tucked his wand back into his belt.

The ettercaps' clawed hands passed through Valtaya's body.

"Illusions," Fychan breathed out, suddenly realizing the deception for what it was. The wizard turned to his companions, his eyes wide with alarm. "It's a trap!"

A new lightning bolt, this one from beyond the illusory faeries, proved his assumption correct.

* * *

She had to admit, the human's plan was better than anything she could have invented.

Valtaya had been skeptical at first of Cyril's plan, but Aiken had been impressed with the idea and even Fife had reluctantly agreed to the mage's tactic. Cyril had first used a sphere of invisibility to cloak the four and then carefully made their way through the opening in the fire line, somehow managing to stay silent enough to elude the drow. Once they had reached the undamaged forest, Cyril had used another spell, this one to create illusion of Fife and Valtaya herself making their way through the opening while the real Fife and Aiken tried to locate the well hidden drow. Valtaya could only hope that the drow had not used invisibility spells of their own and chosen the same place to hide in ambush. Valtaya also wondered if the illusions would fool the drow; not only were the dark elves said to be masters of magic, but Cyril's rendering of Fife seemed to Valtaya to show only a passing resemblance to ranger. Still, the plan was already in motion, and silently the druid closed her eyes and prayed to the Mother that the ruse would work.

Booms of thunder ripped through the forest as the drow unleashed fire and lightning against their enemies. Valtaya's eyes snapped open and the druid nearly dove for cover, but the dark elves' onslaught had been thankfully directed against the two images. Fife's illusion burned to a crisp in the magically conjured flames, while Valtaya saw herself knocked down by a javelin. The forest fell silent for a long moment, but the drow finally revealed themselves as they moved to claim their trophies. Valtaya's eyes went to Fychan as the wizard finally revealed himself, standing and watching with a vaguely uneasy expression on his darkly handsome features as the spider things moved to collect her illusion. Still the druid could not decide exactly how to view the wizard; he had treated her better than the other drow, but she was not certain if his apparent kindness was just an act to confuse her. He had drugged her, true, but if the others had wanted to beat the information out of her…

Fychan suddenly shouted out a warning to his companions. Valtaya snapped back to the present, seeing the ettercaps' claws passing through her illusion. In an instant the sphere of invisibility cloaking her dropped as Cyril unleashed a lightning bolt through the ettercaps at Fychan. At the same moment Fife and Aiken both opened up on Cadwared, who had made himself the most obvious target when he stepped out of the cover the others had used. Valtaya frantically rushed through her spells to try and add her own power to the strike, quickly settling on the priestess, Rhonwen, as she tried to react to the sudden assault. The druid rushed through her spell, trying to freeze Rhonwen inside of her chain mail with a chill metal spell, but before she could judge if it had been successful a burst of sound threw her flat on her back.

The sound burst stunned Valtaya for only a moment, but in the short time it took her to recover her hearing and senses the forest had seemingly dropped back into tense silence broken only by the crackling fires. Aiken and Fife, who had revealed themselves to fire on Cadwared, had once again disappeared into the verdant undergrowth, while the four drow had seemingly melted into the darkness. Even Cyril, barely visible to the druid's right, had attempted to hide in the foliage. For an agonizing moment, none of the combatants dared to reveal themselves.

A sudden scream broke the silence. Rhonwen suddenly appeared, breaking cover and running in the direction of the fires as she clawed at her freezing armor. The drow priestess' abrupt appearance seemed to restart the battle in a mad frenzy; Aiken and Fife popped into view as they sent their arrows flying, quickly prompting Talaith to throw up a wind wall to deflect the incoming missiles. Fychan also rejoined the fray in that instant, hurling a fireball directly between the two archers and lighting the forest with a brilliant explosion. Valtaya could barely see what happened to her two allies when Cyril leapt to his feet and shouted a bold, arcane phrase, following up the roar of the fireball with the booming thunder of a lightning bolt directed at the drow wizard. Once again Valtaya hurried through her spells in an attempt to aid her companions.

"You made it too easy," Cadwared suddenly said, practically whispering in her ear. The druid leapt away in terror and spun quickly, stunned by the dark elf's sudden appearance so close to her. "The chase, faerie," Cadwared prompted, drawing his short swords. Valtaya glanced about her desperately, praying for Fife to come to her aid, but as she turned to her companions Cadwared's shadowy duplicate appeared in front of her. The shadow lashed out with one inky sword at her, but the druid was just able to skip out of the way of the incorporeal blade. "Run, girl!" Cadwared ordered.

With no other options, Valtaya did just as the drow suggested.

* * *

The cunning deception was worthy of admiration, but that admiration could wait until long after the faeries were dead.

Fychan stumbled back to his feet, still smoking from the impact of the lightning bolt that had nearly felled him as he tried to discern exactly who had cast the spell. Valtaya was a druid, incapable of arcane magic, while the male that accompanied her was a ranger who could never have cast such a bolt. As the wizard stood again, however, he found himself facing four enemies; the two faeries had somehow found what must have been the remnants of the human party they had destroyed the previous night. With four instead of two, the faeries had sought to bring the battle to the drow, and initially they had seemed to gain the advantage. Such thought was folly; no human or surface elf could stand against the drow, and now they would see the flaws in their thinking.

Fychan cast one last glance around him, quickly appraising the scene. Rhonwen had actually jumped inside the flames of the forest fire, but the intense cold of her armor kept her from taking any damage as she turned back to the fight at hand. Cadwared had already gone in pursuit of Valtaya, chasing the faerie away from her allies between him and his shadow duplicate. Only Talaith seemed to be in any sort of trouble, ducking low behind her shield as the faerie and human archer unleashed their arrows against her, but his sister's problems would last no longer than it took for Fychan to flick his wand of lightning at the two bowmen. Quickly the drow lifted his wand and turned on the surface dwellers, deciding that his sister would be far more useful alive than dead for the time being.

Four magic missiles suddenly streaked in on the drow wizard, but instead of punching four holes in his chest the mystical bolts suddenly arced up and were absorbed into the brooch that clasped Fychan's cloak at his neck. The drow turned back on his human counterpart, a cold smile growing on his lips even as he thanked Lolth that the surface dweller had used a spell that he was well defended against. Without his brooch of shielding, the human wizard's magic missile spell would have been more than enough to kill him. Even now the human wizard was quickly preparing another spell, desperate to cast before the drow could recover from the impact and turn his own mystical power on his attacker. With a single word and a forceful swing of his wand, Fychan hurled another lightning bolt at the wizard, throwing him to the ground with the force of the blast. The drow waited for a long moment, his wand still poised to throw another lightning bolt where the human wizard had fallen, but his surface dwelling counterpart seemed to have fallen to the drow's mystical power. Quickly Fychan turned his attention elsewhere, quickly flagging down Rhonwen as she tried to make her way back to Talaith.

"Quickly," the wizard said, "heal me and we can strike down the two archers together!"

"Do not presume to order a female to do anything," Rhonwen snarled, her chain mail still steaming from the last remnants of Valtaya's druidic spells.

"We have no time to argue," Fychan pointed out, gesturing to Talaith as she dropped back a step. Both archers were still firing on the noble, but the elf was already pointing to the other drow for his human companion. "Heal me quickly, before they turn on us!"

* * *

He had hoped that Cyril's magic missile would strike down the drow wizard, but the dark elf had seemingly been prepared for the magical assault.

"Cyril's down!" Aiken shouted, although he barely lost a second from his firing on the armored drow ahead of him. Quickly the warden glanced around him, hoping that Valtaya would be able to help his friend, but the younger elf was nowhere to be found. "Where's Valtaya?"

"I don't know!" Fife shouted, frustration evident in his voice as he continued to loose his arrows against the drow. Like Aiken, Fife had prayed that the drow would be taken out quickly in the moment of surprise, but the four dark elves were showing themselves to be as resilient as they were lethal. None of the four drow had fallen in the initial assault, and even as Fife and Aiken tried to eliminate at least one of the dark elves from the fight the others had struck Cyril down and chased Valtaya somewhere into the darkness. "We have to take her down!" Fife shouted. "I think she's the leader!"

"How can you tell?" Aiken asked, glancing over his bow again to the dark wizard. None of their foes seemed to hold any identifying marks, but Fife seemed determined to fell the woman before them first. The armored female's shield moved almost like magic as she backpedaled and desperately searched for an escape from the barrage, somehow warding off every arrow that the two archers loosed.

"Females lead the drow!" Fife shouted in reply. The elf continued to draw arrows and fire on the barely visible woman, driving her back as she stayed focused on her defense. Aiken fired one more shot on the drow, trying to keep her off balance, but even as he let his arrow fly he glanced back to the wizard that had downed Cyril. The drow had already been joined by a second female, her armor still steaming from the combination of Valtaya's spell and the fires that the woman had run through to ward off the cold.

"Fife, another female!" Aiken shouted. The elf barely looked over his shoulder.

"She's yours!" Fife ordered. Aiken's mouth dropped open at the command, but the ranger had no more time to think as both the wizard and the armored woman with him turned their attention to him. The wizard was once again drawing his wand to throw off a lightning bolt, while the woman had already begun to chant a spell of her own. Knowing that he would never be able to interrupt two spellcasters at the same time, Aiken simply dropped low and dove to his left.

The move saved his life, but did not leave him unscathed. The wizard's lightning bolt was late and tore through the forest to his left, but the woman's flame strike was both faster and more accurate. Aiken could feel the searing, unholy flames burn his legs as he dove away from the towering pillar of orange and red flames that erupted behind him. Trees and bushes burst into flames around him as the warden tumbled headlong through the undergrowth, quickly trying to beat out the flames on his legs and arms. Smoking but still alive, Aiken scrambled rapidly away from where he had fallen, making certain that a second flame strike did not end his life. As if to punctuate his point, a wall of flames sprang to life between the warden and Fife, effectively separating the humans from the faeries. Suddenly the warden found himself confronted by fire all around him as the drow ignited a new blaze just north of the main forest fires.

"This is going really wrong," a voice said behind him. Aiken whirled, drawing his long sword and fumbling with his hand axe, but before the warden could attack he identified the badly injured Cyril next to him.

"Pelor's sunny ass," Aiken breathed out. "I thought they had gotten you!"

"Almost," Cyril said, gingerly touching the worst of the electrical burns across his chest. The wizard nodded in the direction of the two drow spellcasters. "We have to take them out quickly, or we're all dead," the wizard said. "If you think you can get close enough to the woman to kill her, I'll get another lightning bolt off on my arcane counterpart over there."

"You're in no condition to continue the fight," Aiken pointed out, quickly appraising his companion's injuries.

"Do you think they'll stop long enough for us to let the girl heal me?" Cyril inquired. Aiken shook his head.

"Okay," the warden relented. "But be careful."

"You're the one going over there, not me," Cyril said with a smile. "If it all goes well, that black elf will never know what hit him."

* * *

The pressure had almost been too much for her, a high priestess of Lolth and heir of House Evnissien, to handle, but the barrage of arrows was thankfully cut short before it could find a way through her defenses.

Talaith finally found herself able to breathe slightly easier as the human archer broke off his assault and turned on Rhonwen and Fychan, instantly swinging the battle's momentum to the drow. Faced with only one faerie, and a male at that, Talaith quickly grew more confident and halted her backward flight, allowing the foolish male to take a few more shots at her as she quickly debated her strategy. The faeries were nothing if not predictable, and Matron Saffir's gift of a shield whose enchantments were designed especially to deflect arrows had been all that was necessary to put the faeries back on their heels. Two more arrows glanced off of the shield as Talaith began to stalk forward, measuring her distance from the archer with a quick glance. The priestess hesitated for a brief moment, wondering where her ettercaps had gone when they should have been attacking the faeries, but the spidery abominations were only of secondary concern to her at the moment. Talaith took one step further, allowing the male to take one more shot at her, then called upon her innate powers.

A globe of darkness dropped over the faerie, blinding him instantly. Although Talaith could not see into her own darkness, her flame strike was aimed directly in the center of the globe, gambling on the possibility that the faerie would be too surprised by the sudden loss of vision to avoid the upcoming attack. The priestess' flame strike towered into the night sky, erupting out of the top of the globe of darkness, accompanied by a scream of pain that could only be the faerie. Talaith rushed forward, drawing her snake headed whip to finish her opponent, but before she reached the globe of darkness the surface elf erupted out of the inky sphere with his swords drawn.

He was badly burned and in obvious pain, but the sudden, furious assault quickly put Talaith back on her heels. The faerie's swords slammed into her shield with a jarring double impact, forcing the slightly smaller Talaith back under the brutal onslaught. Again and again the male cut away at the priestess' defenses, forcing her into a completely defensive stance, but Talaith frantically managed to keep pace with almost every cut and swing the surface elf could muster. One glancing blow struck Talaith across the shoulder and another laid open her thigh, forcing the priestess to one knee, but Talaith managed to keep her shield in line with the rest of the badly burned elf's attacks as she tried to back away from the ranger. While the elf's initial ferocity was quickly giving way to the pain of his injuries, Talaith was finding herself quickly out dueled by the disgusting faerie opposing her.

"Stop!" Talaith shouted, her voice carrying the unholy power of Lolth. The priestess' spell stopped the faerie just as he brought his swords back, freezing him in place. Slowly and deliberately, knowing that the surface elf was aware of her every move, Talaith calmly called upon the Spider Queen to heal the vicious wound to her leg, then stood and carefully tested her mended limb. While dull aches still plagued her thigh and the pain would still cause her a slight limp, the priestess masked the discomfort and turned a malicious, almost seductive smile on her prisoner. Making certain to turn each move into a theatrical display, Talaith allowed the five writhing heads of her snake whip to coil furiously as she sauntered towards the frozen faerie, but before she attacked she ran one delicate hand down her opponent's cheek. The faerie knew nothing of her language, but Talaith leaned in close and whispered into his ear anyway.

"Foolish male," the priestess cooed. Then she took one step back and struck.

The searing pain of the snakes biting into his flesh instantly broke Talaith's hold person spell, but the snakes' venom quickly replaced his paralysis with searing pain and muscle spasms that quickly sapped his ability to fight. The elf's sword strikes were already less coordinated as Talaith struck again and again, warding off her enemy's swords with her shield and retaliating with brutal strikes of her whip that continued to rip away the elf's studded leather and chunks of flesh with equal precision. Overcome by poison his myriad injuries, the surface elf nonetheless tried desperately to hold off his foe, but his vicious slashes were now reduced to jerky, half blind swipes of his weapons. Talaith backed off one step, smiling coldly as she watched the faerie struggle to his feet. By the time he could turn back on the drow, however, Talaith had completed her spell, and a swarm of spiders scurried across the forest floor between them to engulf the badly wounded faerie. As the spiders finished off her opponent, Talaith could not help but smile at the gruesome spectacle.

"Foolish male," the priestess said one last time. Then she turned back to the rest of the battle.

* * *

Her flight as not the headlong dash that had carried her into the spider's web and her initial capture several nights ago, but at each turn she still found herself blocked by Cadwared or his shadow.

Valtaya tried everything she knew to escape the malicious drow and his shadow double, but Cadwared seemed to anticipate every move the druid made and met her at every turn. Valtaya tried to make her flight as erratic as possible, quickly falling back and trying to move around her foe before he could discern her direction, but each move only seemed to push her farther and farther from her allies. Beyond the veil of trees and undergrowth, the druid could see lightning and fire exploding through the forest, a clear indication that help could not reach her. She had to find a way around Cadwared and back to Fife and the others on her own.

As if reading her thoughts, Cadwared suddenly appeared on front of her, laughing as he took a deliberately high swing at her with his sword. Valtaya nearly fell flat on her back in her desperate attempts to avoid the errant blade, putting her easily in line with the drow's second blade. That sword cut through her leather armor, but thankfully the weapon only grazed her stomach just below her rib cage. The druid stumbled to one knee for a moment but leapt back to her feet, only to put herself directly in the path of the shadow's own blades. The icy, incorporeal weapon ripped through her chest and chilled her to the bone, but even as her strength was sapped by the numbing strike she was on her feet and running headlong into the darkness. Valtaya knew she could never abandon her companions, but unarmed as she was, the druid needed to put enough distance between her and Cadwared to allow her to cast some sort of spell. Given the time to cast a spell, she could summon an earth elemental to her side, but she could not cast the spell while Cadwared and his shadow were attacking her. Behind her Cadwared had launched himself wholly into the chase now, running her down with supernatural speed as his laughter carried through the darkness.

Valtaya's mad dash ended with a horrid ripping sound as her right leg suddenly gave out on her. Even as she fell she could feel blood running down the back of her knee and into her boot, but for the moment her only pain came from a scrape to her chin as she glanced off of a fallen sapling.

"The thrill of the chase!" Cadwared exclaimed, coming to a stop over her. Horrible waves of agony finally shot through the druid's leg, accompanied by maddening twitches of her severed hamstring. Cadwared kicked the fallen druid onto her back, aggravating the already serious injury with his callous treatment, and through tears of pain Valtaya found herself looking into the drow warrior's blood red eyes as he lingered over her. "I win, my dear," he whispered, already beginning to cut through her leather tunic with his sword. Valtaya threw one wild punch at her attacker, but Cadwared caught her fist easily even as he pinned her other arm beneath his knee. Held helpless, Valtaya could only pray for a miracle as she struggled desperately to free herself. "And to the victor, goes the spoils."

Cadwared was suddenly gone, lifted off of her and thrown into the air among the branches of the trees above her. Valtaya tried to jump to her feet, unwilling to spend any time trying to figure out what had happened, but her hamstrung leg instantly gave way under her and dropped her back to the ground. Above her, Cadwared fought and shouted in his own language as his arms and legs were wrapped in branches and vines, quickly stretching him between two large, squat oaks. Cadwared's shadow flailed at the bases of the trees, hacking away with its shadow swords, but the entity seemed to have no effect as Cadwared was quickly stretched to the breaking point. With a final, disgusting snap, the drow warrior was torn in half between the two trees.

"Not trees," Valtaya breathed, forgetting the pain of her injuries for the moment in the face of her rescuers. "Treants."

* * *

He had made it close enough to the two drow to spring his trap, somehow going unnoticed in his quick dash to their position. His initial good fortune, however, seemed to run out as quickly as it had come.

Aiken had initially caught the second drow priestess completely off guard, scoring a quick and devastating hit to her before she could react, but the wizard had managed an attack of his own before Cyril could rejoin the fray. Four magic missiles slammed into the warden's side as he pushed the female back, further injuring the already wounded warden as he tried to keep the offensive against the woman. The priestess drew a serrated long sword from the sheath at her side as Aiken kept on her, trying to give her no time to cast a spell before he reached her and praying that Cyril would take the wizard before he cast another spell. Aiken's hopes proved right a second later; a hemisphere of ice suddenly trapped the wizard even as Aiken pressed the attack on the priestess. The drow female stumbled back step after step as Aiken continued to bash away at her defenses, concentrating as much on knocking her sword and shield from her hands as he did on finding a way through her defenses. With the wizard trapped inside Cyril's icy prison, Aiken began to believe that the battle might go to the surface dwellers after all.

A deafening roar of flames suddenly washed over the warden, bringing with it an unbearable heat that began to sear Aiken's unprotected flesh. The ice prison melted and tumbled to one side, but the drow wizard emerged from the thawing deluge without anything more than a few spots of water on his black robes. Aiken's surprise at seeing the dark elf emerge nearly cost him his life; the warden barely turned back to the female in time to parry away a brutal overhand chop that nearly broke the haft of his hand axe. Both Aiken and the female swiftly began to push their way away from the fire wall that now burned yet another line through the battlefield, attempting to escape the inferno's scorching heat even as they tried to fine their way through each other's defenses. Somewhere behind him, Cyril was beginning another spell, his sharp voice sounding rushed and nervous in the face of his opponent's show of might. With the drow priestess still coming at him, Aiken could not hazard anything more than a glance to the two sorcerers, and instead turned all his attention to the woman in front of him. Priestess or not, the dark elf was no novice with her blade, and even a momentary distraction could spell the warden's downfall.

The priestess was no novice with her weapon, but she was no master either. The woman's predilection for heavy, overhead chops was quickly becoming predictable, and the windup for such a powerful blow was a clear sign of her intentions. Three times the dark elf brought her sword crashing down, but even as she hit nothing Aiken found the opening he needed in the woman's stance and downstroke. As she once again brought her sword arm back for the now expected strike, Aiken swept forward and exploited the weakness.

The female tried to pull her sword back in time, but she was already too open to her opponent to mount a significant defense. Aiken caught the blade of his axe on the edge of the drow's shield and yanked as hard as he could, barely pulling the steel rimmed device aside. The priestess' eyes went wide and she tried to dodge the inevitable strike, but Aiken had already thrust his sword forward with all his might, busting through the rings of her chain mail and driving the blade deep into her stomach. Almost at the same instant, another fireball exploded far behind the two combatants. Aiken turned quickly, hurling the dying priestess off of his sword, but already it was too late. The drow wizard was already turning on the warden, while the spot where Cyril had been was now yet another fiercely burning fire in the dark forest.

* * *

Rhonwen's death was not so much a blow to Fychan as it was a welcome event. Talaith's handmaiden had never been one of the wizard's favorite females.

Fychan turned away from the smoking crater where the human wizard had stood, facing his last opponent with as confident and cold a demeanor as he could muster. With his spells virtually exhausted and his wand of lightning out of charges, however, the wizard would be at a distinct disadvantage if Rhonwen's killer turned on him next. The wizard had a fireball left on one of his scrolls to use against the ranger, but beyond that he could manage only a magic missile and a web spell to bring to bear against his foe. Even as the ranger turned on him, however, Fychan's eyes lit with a more confident and sinister smile; Talaith had finally won her battle against the elven archer, and had finally turned to help her brother. Even without her spells, Talaith was a brutal fighter and the master of her snake headed whip, and the already badly injured human would stand no chance against the two of them.

Fychan's eyes lost their confidence, however, as he saw something huge looming in the trees behind his sister.

At first the wizard thought some kind of giant had entered the fray, but all too quickly the hulking shape's true form became apparent. The human ranger, resigning himself to his last stand against the two drow, quickly followed the wizard's line of sight, but even he seemed more unnerved by the walking trees than anything else. Seeing the two males staring over her head at something behind her, Talaith also turned to face the living tree, the _treant_ of early drow myth, now marching towards her.

Fychan wasted no more time gawking, but quickly drew his final scroll and unfurled it with a quick flick of his wrist. The ranger was on the move, racing towards the spellcaster, but Fychan was far less concerned with the badly injured human than he was the terrifying tree monster closing on his sister. The dark elf sped through his chant, unleashing a ball of fire on the treant just before the ranger could reach him. The fireball erupted in the branches of the tree thing even as Talaith called upon her flame strike to devour the monster, but the wizard saw nothing past the initial explosions as he crumpled to the ground beneath the impact of the ranger's sword. Gasping in pain and clutching at the grievous wound in his side, the wizard crawled backwards as quickly as he could while the ranger stalked in on him. Although Fychan had very few spells left at his disposal, his innate abilities were another thing altogether.

In an instant the wizard had dropped the world around him into a globe of inky darkness. While the darkness blinded even Fychan, the wizard was certain that his opponent could not see either, and quickly rolled to the side. A heavy blade impacted sharply with the ground where he had been a moment before, but Fychan was unwilling to spend any more time in combat with the human. Stumbling to his feet and staggering out of the globe, the wizard quickly cast his web spell, hearing a satisfactory shout of frustration from the entangled human trapped in his spell. The wizard next turned to Talaith, but the priestess had already covered most of the distance between them in her race to escape the enraged treants. One of the sentient trees had indeed fallen to their combined fire spells, but four more of the monsters had joined the attack.

"Quickly," Talaith gasped, barely stopping to grab her wounded brother. "We must escape now!"

"What about the tree things?" Fychan inquired. Although he doubted they could win a fight against four more treants, the wizard was uncertain if facing Matron Saffir without accomplishing their mission was a preferable alternative

"To the Hells with the tree things!" Talaith snapped, glancing over her shoulder. Fychan thought for a moment that he saw Valtaya riding in the branches of one of the treants, but he could not be certain before he was spun around by his sister's panicked attempt to drag him along. "They will kill us!"

Fychan hesitated only a second longer before following his sister off into the darkness. They had lost their sacrifice and had not killed all of the tree things, but Fychan did know one thing that might buy him a reprieve at the hands of his sadistic mother.

He knew how to find Oakenbough.


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"What will happen to us?"

"We won't know until we face the matron mother," Fychan said quietly, sitting just inside the mouth of the cave that had originally led the drow to the hated surface world. Outside, the relative darkness of the night was beginning to give way to dawn, and within a short while the terrible sun would once again rise over the forests. "We did not fail utterly," the wizard said. "We devastated their homeland and killed several of their number."

"The tree things remain alive," Talaith said quietly. Since their defeat during the night, the normally confident noble had slipped into a deep melancholy, and Fychan was not certain if she would allow the two surviving raiders to return to Llyr or try to find and defeat the tree things again. "We lost the female. We have no sacrifice and did not accomplish our goal."

"Our goal was near impossible to begin with," Fychan pointed out. "Four drow against the entire surface world? I think we did well for the odds."

"You had best hope that Matron Saffir sees things in the same light," Talaith snarled, suddenly regaining her hard edge and turning on her brother. "If you had not fallen for the illusion that the human used against you, would could have defeated them and retaken our prisoner!"

"Be that as it may, dear sister, you were our leader," Fychan stated evenly, unwilling to back down after such an arduous night. "And Matron Saffir will remember who she placed in charge of such an important task. It may be that in several days' time, Arwydd may become eldest daughter and heir to House Evnissien, while Talaith Evnissien becomes little more than a cursed drider hiding the depths below Llyr."

"Do not threaten me," Talaith growled, leaning in close to Fychan and reaching for her whip. "In several hours' time, Naomhin could be the only male child left in House Evnissien, no longer needing to fear his treacherous younger brother."

"Like it or not, Talaith, you cannot punish me now," Fychan said. "We need each other. We will have to face the Matron Mother, and unless we work together to appease her, both of us will be cast into the pits of the Abyss."

Talaith hesitated for a moment, certainly unwilling to admit that she ever needed anything from a male, but in the end she knew that Fychan was right. Each one had no intention of saving the other, but unless they both used all their skills to manipulate and cajole their vicious mother, neither would live long past their return to the gate of House Evnissien. Finally, the priestess closed her eyes and nodded.

"We will work together," Talaith said. She looked at the slowly brightening sky one last time, then turned her crimson eyes to the lightless depths of the tunnels leading down into the earth. "Let's go home."

* * *

Her journey home had not been quite as long as her initial trek into the wildest forests of Argent, and her return had led her through the heartrending destruction the drow had wrought across so much of Argent's western reaches. Her return was made even more difficult by the memories of the brave elves she had left behind. Of the six that had gone to stop the hidden threat, only Valtaya would return to the majesty of Oakenbough. She had lost her teacher and dearest friend in Druce, and she could only pray to the Mother to grant her one time companions and friends an everlasting place in the great cycle of nature. She could also never forget Cyril, the human wizard who had given his own life to save Argent, or Aiken, the half elven ranger that had also fought bravely in defense of the elven homeland and had helped her build a cairn to honor the fallen Fife. They had said little to each other on their final parting, but now, days later, Valtaya silently wished that she had invited him back to the elven capitol. The elves of Oakenbough needed to see the faces that had helped save their forest from total destruction. In the end, two humans had meant at least as much as any elf involved in the fight against the shadowy drow.

Now, almost three weeks after she had left the elven capitol, Oakenbough once again came into sight as she slowly paddled down the River Embléz. Already she could see her father, as well as Teirtu and a handful of soldiers, waiting on northern bank of the river just outside the city. Eagerly Valtaya turned her canoe to the waiting men, her fatigue and grief replaced by the joy of seeing her father alive and waiting for her on the riverbank.

"Valtaya!" Lord Caradoc shouted, forgetting his elegant robes as he rushed knee deep into the water to retrieve his daughter. The lord's face was flushed with relief and happiness as he pulled his daughter from the canoe, holding her in a tight embrace that barely allowed the younger elf to breathe. "You cannot imagine how thankful I was to hear from Ceallai that you were finally returning!"

"I missed you, father!" Valtaya exclaimed, returning Lord Caradoc's hug with equal intensity. "I didn't know if I would ever see you again! Thank the Mother!"

"I… I was sorry to hear about Druce and the others," Lord Caradoc said, finally releasing his daughter and escorting her onto the shore. Teirtu met the reunited father and daughter at the waterline, bowing to Valtaya as she came ashore. "To lose such fine elves is a tragic blow to Oakenbough, but those elves will be remembered and honored for some time to come."

"And humans," Valtaya added. Teirtu's welcome smile was replaced quickly by a faintly confused expression.

"Yes, and humans too," Caradoc reluctantly added. "Though I think you place too much emphasis on their… actions."

"Cyril died fighting a drow wizard, and you think I place too much emphasis on their actions?" Valtaya repeated, her cheer at being home vanishing instantly.

"Drow?" Teirtu echoed in a tone of amused disbelief. "My dear, drow are only a myth! It was hobgoblins that you fought!"

"Hobgoblins?" Valtaya repeated, stunned. Teirtu's face still showed his humor at the thought that she had fought drow, but the general's eyes shot a stern warning to the young noble not to mention the word again. "But… they… they were drow!"

"No, my dear," Lord Caradoc corrected gently, putting his arm around her and leading her away from the elven general. "You fought hobgoblins. The drow disappeared millennia ago, and they never survived their exile underground."

"Father, I saw them!" Valtaya countered. "They were drow!"

"They were not drow!" Lord Caradoc snapped, turning on his daughter as he dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. ":Do you have any idea what the existence of drow would do to our nation? Do you have any idea what could happen to us?"

"Yes," Valtaya retorted defiantly. "We could ally with the humans and destroy those monsters once and for all!"

"Ally with humans? Against drow?" Lord Caradoc concluded in amazement. "You are wrong! The humans would overrun us as soon as they would help us against our mythical enemies! They would use our war as an excuse to expand their influence into our nation, and destroy the forests that you love so dearly like they have their own! And if Krysztof and the hobgoblins ever truly discovered that such creatures as drow existed, they would gain a new ally and bring the fight to our very homes! For your sake, for all our sake, there is no such thing as drow! Do you understand me?"

"I understand you," Valtaya snarled out, locking eyes with her angry father for a long moment. Finally, she turned on her heel and stalked away, furious with the mindset that the leaders of Argent had taken. She now held no doubt that Aiken and Cyril would be intentionally forgotten in any mention of the fires that had nearly destroyed Argent, and that officially the fire had been caused by hobgoblins. Argent was bent on retaining their fragile illusion of perfection and impregnability. Like Aiken had said to her, until someone at the top fixed things, people on the bottom would continue to get kicked.

Maybe now, the druid thought as she cast one last, furious glance over her shoulder to her father, was the time for Lady Valtaya to fix things at the top.


End file.
